---
title: "v2026.9.20"
summary: "`distil-large-v3.5` is selectable on the faster-whisper lane (English only, about one WER point better than `turbo` at the same speed)."
description: "Dictate v2026.9.20 release notes: what changed, and who contributed."
keywords:
  - Dictate
  - v2026.9.20
  - release notes
---

# v2026.9.20

<!-- Written by scripts/release/changelog.mjs from CHANGELOG/2026.9.20.md. Do not edit it: the release cut writes it again. -->

AI agents and tools can read these release notes as [plain Markdown](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arcforgelabs/dictate/master/CHANGELOG/2026.9.20.md).

This release covers **6 pull requests.**

## Highlights

- `distil-large-v3.5` is selectable on the faster-whisper lane (English only, about one WER point better than `turbo` at the same speed).
- Transparent brand marks, a circular badge, and Store/MSIX logos rendered from the brand SVG.
- ONNX Runtime moved to 1.30 for the CPU and CUDA lanes.
- `parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2` stays the English default after a head-to-head with `parakeet-unified-en-0.6b`; the evaluation is recorded in `docs/TRANSCRIPTION_PLAN.md`.
- The published npm `latest` package now carries the Python source, so `npx [@arcforgelabs](https://github.com/arcforgelabs)/dictate install` works on Linux on the stable channel.

## Changes

- `distil-large-v3.5` is selectable on the faster-whisper lane (English only, about one WER point better than `turbo` at the same speed).
- Transparent brand marks, a circular badge, and Store/MSIX logos rendered from the brand SVG.
- ONNX Runtime moved to 1.30 for the CPU and CUDA lanes. The CUDA lane now uses CUDA 13 runtime wheels and needs NVIDIA driver 580 or newer; on older drivers Parakeet falls back to CPU. `onnxruntime-directml` is capped at 1.24.x, the last published DirectML wheel.
- `onnx-asr` 0.12 and `pyannote.audio` 4.0.7.
- The desktop views follow the brand-book spacing and colour rules.
- `parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2` stays the English default after a head-to-head with `parakeet-unified-en-0.6b`; the evaluation is recorded in `docs/TRANSCRIPTION_PLAN.md`.

## Fixes

- The published npm `latest` package now carries the Python source, so `npx [@arcforgelabs](https://github.com/arcforgelabs)/dictate install` works on Linux on the stable channel.
- Documentation no longer describes the removed cloud, Pro, or API-key surfaces.

## Contribution record

[CHANGELOG/records/2026.9.20.md](https://github.com/arcforgelabs/dictate/blob/master/CHANGELOG/records/2026.9.20.md) lists every pull request in this release once, with its related issues and thanks.