transcribe never assigns word id on the JSON path, so per-word caption overrides have nothing to key on #3442

Summary

media-use/audio/references/transcribe.md:43 states the word id (w0, w1, …) "is added during normalization for stable references in caption overrides."

For the JSON transcripts the CLI itself produces, it never is. Per-word caption overrides have nothing to key on.

Environment

• hyperframes 0.8.10, installed globally via npm
• macOS 15, Apple M5 Pro
• whisper-cpp small.en via Homebrew whisper-cli
• Independently reproduced on WSL2 / Ubuntu

Measured

hyperframes transcribe probe.wav --model small.en on 1.7 s of speech:

[
  { "text": "The",         "start": 0.01, "end": 0.16 },
  { "text": "pipeline",    "start": 0.16, "end": 0.6  },
  { "text": "is",          "start": 0.6,  "end": 0.68 },
  { "text": "proven",      "start": 0.82, "end": 1.04 },
  { "text": "end-to-end.", "start": 1.04, "end": 1.74 }
]

Zero id fields across all 5 words.

Where it is and is not assigned

loadTranscript (dist/cli.js:97787) branches on file type:

The flat-array branch is the one that looks like the documented normalization and is not: a missing id becomes "", so every word ends up sharing the same empty key.

Since the branch is chosen by file format rather than by caller, going through the skill-driven flow instead of the CLI does not change the result — it is the same loadTranscript.

Workaround (verified, no code change)

Round-trip through SRT with --preserve-cues on both legs:

hyperframes transcribe audio.wav --model small.en                          # -> transcript.json, no ids
hyperframes transcribe transcript.json --to srt -o w.srt --preserve-cues
hyperframes transcribe w.srt --preserve-cues                               # -> transcript.json WITH ids

Result: 5 entries, word-level timings preserved, id w0…w4 present.

--preserve-cues is required on the export leg too. Without it the export groups all 5 words into a single cue, and the word granularity is gone before the id assignment ever runs — the re-import then yields one entry, id: "w0", text "The pipeline is proven end-to-end.".

The CLI help describes --preserve-cues purely in import terms ("Keep each transcript entry as its own caption cue"), which gives no hint that it is load-bearing on export.

Suggested fixes

1. Assign "w" + i in parseWhisperCpp / parseOpenAI, or in the flat-array branch of loadTranscript instead of defaulting to "".
2. Correct transcribe.md:43 — as written it promises ids on the path that never produces them.
3. Document --preserve-cues as applying to export as well as import.