⚡ 100% Local macOS Intelligence

Screen recording that actually transcribes and writes meeting notes.

Native ScreenCaptureKit engine. Lossless system audio + microphone capture. Local Whisper transcription. Realtime live assist HUD. Zero cloud leaks.

$ npm install -g localscribe

macOS 13+ Sonoma / Sequoia Apple Silicon & Intel Bun + Swift + FFmpeg 100% Test Coverage

terminal — 80x24

v0.1.0

~ $ localscribe start --name "Q4 Architecture Sync" --live --notes

building capture helper... done

recording -> 2026-10-21_14-30-00_q4-architecture-sync.mp4

stop with: localscribe stop

live assist: opened in foreground HUD [TUI active]

[14:30:05] sysaudio attached

[14:30:06] microphone channel 0 linked

[14:30:08] whisper live segmenter: ggml-base.en active

⚡ Status: Recording 2026-10-21_14-30-00_q4-architecture-sync (0m15s)

Capabilities

Engineered for Deep Technical Work

ScreenCaptureKit Engine

Native macOS ScreenCaptureKit capture. Record full displays, individual windows by title or app, or interactively drag-to-select regions on screen.

--window <id|name> · --area pick · --display N

Lossless System Audio + Mic

No BlackHole. No Soundflower. No kernel extensions. Localscribe taps the ScreenCaptureKit system audio stream directly and isolates mic audio on separate tracks.

Auto-muxed to clean AAC MP4 with FFmpeg

Local Whisper Transcription

Powered by local whisper.cpp. Automatically parses language or runs Bangla with large-v3-turbo, Hindi, Urdu, Spanish, Arabic, or English base.

--transcribe · --lang bangla · --lang auto

Live Assist TUI HUD

A dual-speaker realtime terminal feed while recording. Distinguishes who spoke (me vs them). Ask Hermes questions in real time with ?question.

localscribe live · --role candidate|interviewer|meeting

Timestamped AI Notes

Hermes turns messy conversation transcripts into structured notes: Summary, Key Points, Decisions, and Action Items stamped with transcript clock [mm:ss].

--notes · Auto-summarized conversation slugs

Screen Annotation Overlay

Draw directly over the screen during presentations or reviews. Native transparent Metal-backed canvas spawns as a sidecar process.

--draw · Cleans up on stop automatically

Video Optimization & Queue

Compress raw Retina recordings with H.264 & custom resolution presets (1080p, 720p, 4k). Asynchronous background worker queue keeps your terminal free.

localscribe optimize --resolution 1080p · localscribe queue

Reference

CLI Command Arsenal

Command	Options	Description
`localscribe start`	`--name, --out, --live, --notes, --transcribe, --draw, --lang`	Starts recording screen + system sound + mic. Opens live TUI or detaches with `-d`.
`localscribe stop`	`--notify`	Stops the active recording session, runs stop hooks (Whisper transcription & Hermes notes). Optional native banner.
`localscribe open`	`[target], --notes, --transcribe, -R`	Opens the recording, notes, or transcript in default macOS app (or reveals in Finder with `-R`).
`localscribe copy`	`[target], --transcribe`	Copies AI notes (or transcript with `--transcribe`) directly to macOS clipboard via `pbcopy`.
`localscribe last`	`--json`	Displays metadata, file paths, and AI summary for the latest recording session.
`localscribe status`	`--json`	Checks whether recording is active, returns file path, start timestamp, and elapsed time.
`localscribe live`	`--role <role>, --context <file>`	Re-attaches the realtime interactive TUI HUD to a detached background recording.
`localscribe captions`	`(none)`	Streams live speaker-attributed transcription text lines to standard output.
`localscribe notes <file>`	`--lang <language>, --name <name>`	Regenerates structured AI meeting notes from an existing recording or transcript.
`localscribe optimize`	`[target], --resolution <res>, --crf N, --wait`	Compresses and scales video via background queue without blocking terminal. Target defaults to latest recording.
`localscribe queue`	`--clear, --json`	Inspects active worker status, enqueued jobs, compression savings, or clears finished jobs.
`localscribe devices`	`--json`	Lists all connected displays, active macOS windows, and available microphones.
`localscribe list`	`(none)`	Lists all finalized video recordings in `~/Movies/localscribe` sorted newest first.

Internals

Zero-Surprise Architecture

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                          LOCALSCRIBE CLI                               │
│              (TypeScript + Bun Runtime / Process Runner)               │
└────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┘
                                     │
           ┌─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┐
           ▼                         ▼                         ▼
┌─────────────────────┐   ┌─────────────────────┐   ┌─────────────────────┐
│  SCREEN CAPTURE     │   │    AUDIO ROUTING    │   │  WHISPER LIVE ENGINE│
│  Native Swift (SCK) │   │  System Audio (SCK) │   │  ffmpeg 16k mono wav│
│  Displays / Windows │   │  Mic Audio (ffmpeg) │   │  whisper.cpp worker │
└──────────┬──────────┘   └──────────┬──────────┘   └──────────┬──────────┘
           │                         │                         │
           └─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┘
                                     ▼
                      ┌─────────────────────────────┐
                      │    RECORDING COMPLETE       │
                      │  ffmpeg AAC + H.264 Muxer   │
                      └──────────────┬──────────────┘
                                     ▼
                      ┌─────────────────────────────┐
                      │    HERMES NOTES ENGINE      │
                      │  Hardened temp sandbox      │
                      │  Delimited untrusted block  │
                      │  Summary + Actions [mm:ss]  │
                      └─────────────────────────────┘