What is the volume blank in OpenCues?

The volume blank turns your text field into a volume control. Type volume _ and the _ fills with your real system volume (say, 70%); pressing Ctrl+Alt+↑/↓ then steps the actual OS audio level by 6 per press, writing the new value back into your text as it goes.

What you type

The trigger keyword is volume, and it must lead the sentence your _ ends. The blank allows up to three words between the keyword and the _, so natural phrasings like volume is _ and volume right now _ fire too. Because the raw number is context-free, the word volume stays in your buffer, so readers can tell what 70% is measuring.

Where the value comes from

A colocated shell script (volume-blank.sh) reads and writes the real audio state, with a per-platform ladder:

• Windows (WSL): a tiny colocated VolCtl.exe talking to the Windows Core Audio API (compiled from shipped C# source by opencues seed-configs), with an nircmd.exe fallback.
• macOS: osascript, built in and always available.
• Linux: wpctl (PipeWire), then pactl (PulseAudio), then amixer (ALSA).

Cycling writes back

This is a writable blank: it declares blankStep: 6, so each Up/Down press calls the script's set branch and your speakers genuinely get louder or quieter. It's the shipped demonstration that a blank can be a two-way system control, not just a lookup.

One honest caveat: the script declares sandbox: off, because reaching the OS audio backend requires paths outside the config root (the frontmatter documents the reasoning inline). And on a machine with no recognised audio backend, get returns a placeholder 50 rather than failing.

Related: Control your system from text · The brightness blank · Write your own blank · GitHub repo