GitHub - kevinshowkat/brood: Reference-first AI image editing desktop for developers (macOS, Tauri, Rust).

Brood helps developers turn existing images into new high-quality variants without prompt writing, while keeping every run reproducible on their Mac.

How to set up in 5m

• Install the latest macOS app from Releases, open it, and complete the in-app OpenRouter onboarding.
• Import one or more images to the canvas and arrange/resize them to communicate intent.
• Let Mother propose the next edit, then confirm, reject, or reroll from the same canvas loop.

Key docs

• Desktop product + workflows: docs/desktop.md
• Reference-first workflow overview: docs/reference-first-image-editing.md
• Local/private model and run data model: docs/macos-local-private-image-editing.md
• Benchmarking and repeatability playbook: docs/benchmark-playbook.md
• Capability-to-outcome matrix: docs/why-brood-matrix.md
• Docs index: docs/README.md
• Agent/dev entrypoints: llms.txt

Highlights

1) Realtime Canvas Proposals

Mother watches your on-canvas edits and proposes the next best transformation without requiring typed prompts.

2) Proposal Drafting and Fast Accept/Deploy Loop

Mother drafts a concrete proposal, then you can accept and deploy in-place with deterministic run artifacts.

3) Live Cost/Token/Queue Telemetry While You Work

Top-panel telemetry keeps model usage, latency, queue depth, and cost visible as you iterate.

Roadmap

• Reduce time-to-first-draft by parallelizing more of Mother's compile + generate path and trimming avoidable queue waits.
• Expand multi-image operation specs and effect-token workflows to make complex edits more controllable.
• Increase provider parity and release hardening while keeping artifacts and receipts stable and reproducible.

Status

Brood is currently a macOS-only desktop app (Tauri). There is no web app, and Windows/Linux builds are not supported yet.

Download (macOS)

Get the latest universal DMG from GitHub Releases:

• https://github.com/kevinshowkat/brood/releases

Install:

1. Download Brood_<version>_universal.dmg.
2. Open the DMG and drag Brood.app into /Applications.
3. If macOS blocks launch, right-click Brood.app and choose Open.

Run from source

Build desktop app:

cd desktop
npm install
npm run tauri build

Local-first run artifacts

Each run writes artifacts under ~/brood_runs/run-* (for example: events.jsonl, mother_trace.jsonl, generation payloads, and receipts).

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.