Notetaker

A macOS note-taking and transcription app with live ASR, audio recording/playback, LLM-powered summarization, scheduled recordings, and session history — all local-first.

Features

• Live Transcription — Real-time speech-to-text using Apple's SpeechAnalyzer (macOS 26+) with Voice Activity Detection
• LLM Summarization — Periodic and overall summaries via local or cloud LLMs (Ollama, OpenAI, Anthropic, LM Studio)
• LLM Profile System — Named model profiles assignable to roles (live summarization, overall summary, title generation)
• Scheduled Recordings — Timer-based and calendar-integrated scheduling with auto-start and duration limits
• Multi-Clip Audio — Pause/resume recording with automatic clip merging
• Session Management — Searchable, date-filterable session list with tagging support
• Background Summaries — Post-recording summarization independent of view lifecycle
• Summary Editing — Inline edit and guided regeneration of summaries
• Privacy-First — API keys in macOS Keychain, local LLM support, privacy disclosure UI
• Crash Diagnostics — MetricKit integration for previous-session crash reporting

Requirements

• macOS 26.2+
• Xcode (Swift 5, SwiftUI)
• Optional: local LLM server (Ollama, LM Studio) for summarization

Build & Test

# Build
xcodebuild -scheme notetaker -configuration Debug build

# Run all unit tests (Swift Testing framework)
xcodebuild -scheme notetaker -configuration Debug test

# Run a specific test suite
xcodebuild -scheme notetaker -configuration Debug -only-testing:notetakerTests/RingBufferTests test

# Run UI tests
xcodebuild -scheme notetaker -configuration Debug -only-testing:notetakerUITests test

Note: Close the app before running tests — UI tests attach to running instances instead of launching fresh ones.

Architecture

Three-layer architecture: Views → ViewModels → Services, with SwiftData @Model classes for persistence.

notetaker/
├── notetakerApp.swift          # Entry point, ModelContainer, MenuBarExtra, Settings
├── ContentView.swift           # NavigationSplitView (sidebar + detail)
├── DesignSystem.swift          # DS enum (spacing, typography, colors, radius tokens)
├── Models/                     # SwiftData models + config types
│   ├── RecordingSession        # Core session with segments, summaries, audio paths
│   ├── TranscriptSegment       # Timestamped speech segments
│   ├── SummaryBlock            # LLM-generated summaries (chunk + overall)
│   ├── ScheduledRecording      # Timed recording with repeat rules
│   ├── LLMConfig/Profile       # LLM connection config + named profiles
│   └── Schemas/                # V1–V6 migration plan
├── Services/                   # Protocol-based engines + utilities
│   ├── ASREngine               # Speech recognition protocol + SpeechAnalyzerEngine
│   ├── LLMEngine               # LLM protocol + Ollama/OpenAI/Anthropic engines
│   ├── AudioCaptureService     # Recording with VAD gating
│   ├── AudioPlaybackService    # Playback with seek
│   ├── AudioExporter           # Multi-clip merge via AVComposition
│   ├── SummarizerService       # Prompt building + LLM orchestration
│   ├── BackgroundSummaryService # Post-recording summary generation
│   ├── SchedulerService        # UNUserNotificationCenter scheduling
│   ├── CalendarService         # EventKit calendar import
│   ├── KeychainService         # Secure API key storage
│   └── CrashLogService         # MetricKit crash diagnostics
├── ViewModels/
│   ├── RecordingViewModel      # Central recording state machine
│   └── SchedulerViewModel      # Scheduled recordings + calendar
└── Views/                      # SwiftUI views
    ├── SessionListView         # Grouped-by-day session browser
    ├── SessionDetailView       # Transcript + summaries + playback
    ├── SettingsView            # Tabbed LLM config with privacy disclosure
    ├── ScheduleView            # Scheduled recording management
    └── ...                     # LiveRecordingView, TranscriptView, etc.

notetakerTests/                 # ~60 test files, ~737 tests
docs/                           # Privacy policy, App Store checklist, specs
scripts/                        # Build number increment

Key Technical Details

• Actor Isolation: SWIFT_DEFAULT_ACTOR_ISOLATION = MainActor — audio/ASR/LLM classes use nonisolated
• Thread Safety: OSAllocatedUnfairLock for audio thread state, serial DispatchQueue for ASR engine
• SwiftData Migration: 6 schema versions (V1–V6) with lightweight migrations via NotetakerMigrationPlan
• File Discovery: PBXFileSystemSynchronizedRootGroup — no pbxproj edits needed for new source files
• Audio Format: M4A/AAC (128kbps) with automatic WAV fallback
• Entitlements: Sandbox + audio-input + user-selected files + network client + calendar access

Default LLM Configuration

• Provider: .apple (Apple Foundation Model)
• Model: foundation-small
• Base URL: (none required, uses on-device framework)

License

MIT