GitHub - bart6114/loofah: Free, open-source meeting recorder and Markdown knowledge vault for macOS. Private on-device transcription, BYO AI, plus CLI and read-only MCP access for agents. No accounts, subscriptions, telemetry, or cloud backend.

GitHub

2 min read Original article ↗

Loofah app icon

Download for macOS (Apple Silicon)

I wanted a meeting notetaker that did a few things well: transcribe locally, keep my notes as ordinary Markdown files, and stay out of the way. I couldn't find one without accounts, subscriptions, or a cloud service in the middle, so I built Loofah on anarlog.

Loofah showing a meeting brief, notes, and recent sessions in a local vault

There is no backend, account, billing, telemetry, or premium tier. Your notes live on your computer and remain usable without this app. If you want AI-generated summaries, connect your own LLM—OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio, or another OpenAI-compatible provider.

This is software I built for my own day-to-day use. It may be rough around the edges, but if you want the same kind of tool, I hope it is useful to you too.

Getting started

Download the signed and notarized Apple Silicon build using the button above. That link always points to the latest published version; previous versions are available on the releases page. You can also build it from source using the instructions below.

Open the app, start a session, and join your meeting. The app records and transcribes on your Mac, then saves the notes as Markdown in your vault.

What matters here

  • The files are yours. Each meeting is stored as Markdown that you can read, search, edit, back up, or sync with whatever you already use.
  • Transcription stays local. Your meeting audio does not need to be sent to a transcription service.
  • AI is optional and bring-your-own. Use a hosted provider or run a local model with Ollama or LM Studio.
  • No account or tracking. Install the app and use it. There is nothing to sign up for.
  • CLI and MCP support. The included loof CLI and MCP server can give your scripts and coding agents read-only access to meeting notes.

Development

This is a pnpm workspace containing a Tauri desktop app (apps/desktop/) and a Rust CLI (apps/cli/). There is no database: the files in the vault are the source of truth. The vault format lives in crates/vault-read/; the interface uses Zustand for state and TipTap for editing.

To run it locally:

pnpm install
pnpm -F @hypr/desktop tauri:dev   # run the desktop app
cargo build -p loof-cli              # build the loof CLI

See AGENTS.md for development notes, including formatting, typechecking, and code-style conventions.

License

MIT. See LICENSE for the complete license and copyright history, including the original anarlog copyright.