MoonLit

Local-first Windows x64 clip recorder based on OBS Studio 32.2.1. Capture your game, keep a searchable local library and export trimmed clips — no accounts, no cloud, no streaming.

Features

• Game detection and capture: automatic target detection with Windows Graphics Capture (WGC), a black privacy shield on focus loss and a safe DXGI monitor fallback. No hooks, no injection, no virtual camera.
• Replay buffer: MKV clips with four audio tracks — mixed (desktop audio), game, microphone and chat. Clip with F8 from inside the game, with a sound cue, or from the dashboard/tray.
• Local library: SQLite with FTS5 search, thumbnails, filters (Todos/Disponibles/Faltantes), external file import, reveal in Explorer, recycle-bin delete and startup reconciliation.
• Clip editor: frame-strip preview with seek, draggable trim handles, mute and gain. Keyframe-aligned MP4 export in the background with progress, cancellation and duration verification.
• Audio: desktop audio capture (what comes out of your speakers or headphones), microphone and chat channels with a compact mixer (volume + mute per source), device selection menus, and Krisp-style noise suppression (RNNoise + noise gate) on the microphone.
• Tray and startup: close-to-tray, minimize-to-tray, login startup with --minimize-to-tray, MoonLit branding throughout.

Requirements

• Windows 10 build 19041 or later, x64.
• A game-capable GPU for hardware encoders (NVENC, QSV or AMF); x264 is the software fallback.

Install

Two options (see the latest release at https://github.com/SourisCG/MoonLit/releases):

• Installer (MoonLit-*-Setup.exe): per-user NSIS install, no admin needed. Installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\MoonLit. Uninstalling keeps your clips, database and configuration.
• Portable (MoonLit-*-x64.zip): extract anywhere and run bin\64bit\MoonLit.exe. A portable_mode marker keeps configuration and data (config/, MoonLitData/) next to the extracted ZIP.

Signing: binaries are signed with the self-signed "MoonLit Development" certificate. On machines other than the build host, install that certificate into Trusted Root/Trusted Publisher first (see docs/moonlit/MANUAL_MATRIX.md) or expect the SmartScreen "Unknown publisher" warning.

Usage

• Dashboard: big record button starts/stops the replay buffer; "Guardar clip" saves the last N seconds; recent clips open the library.
• F8 saves a clip from inside the game (only when the replay buffer is active).
• Library: thumbnail grid with search and filters; select a clip to open the editor (preview, trim, mute/gain) and export MP4.
• Settings: encoder (every registered OBS codec), replay length, audio tracks, recording folder, microphone and desktop-audio devices, chat executable, noise suppression, clip sound and login startup.

Data locations

Scope	Location
Clips (MKV)	%LOCALAPPDATA%\MoonLit\clips
Database	%LOCALAPPDATA%\MoonLit\MoonLit.db
Exports (MP4)	%LOCALAPPDATA%\MoonLit\exports
Configuration	%APPDATA%\MoonLit\obs-studio
Portable (ZIP)	config/ and MoonLitData/ next to the ZIP

Build from source

Prerequisites: CMake 3.28+, Visual Studio 2022 (MSVC), the OBS Windows x64 deps and Qt6 deps in .deps/ (see the OBS build docs).

cmake --preset windows-moonlit-x64
cmake --build build_moonlit_v1_x64 --config RelWithDebInfo --target obs-studio -- /m:1 /v:minimal

The app runs from build_moonlit_v1_x64\rundir\RelWithDebInfo\bin\64bit\MoonLit.exe.

Tests

cmake --build build_moonlit_v1_x64 --config RelWithDebInfo --target moonlit-tests
$env:PATH = ".deps\obs-deps-2026-07-15-x64\bin;.deps\obs-deps-qt6-2026-07-15-x64\bin;$env:PATH"
ctest --test-dir build_moonlit_v1_x64 -C RelWithDebInfo --output-on-failure

Packaging and signing

pwsh -NoProfile -File .github\scripts\sign.ps1      # sign rundir binaries
pwsh -NoProfile -File .github\scripts\audit.ps1     # release-gate audit
pwsh -NoProfile -File .github\scripts\package.ps1   # ZIP + installer + checksums
pwsh -NoProfile -File .github\scripts\matrix-smoke.ps1

Project documentation

• docs/moonlit/PROJECT_PLAN.md — product plan, phase ledger and execution log.
• docs/moonlit/MANUAL_MATRIX.md — manual test matrix and signing procedure.

License

MoonLit is free software under the GNU General Public License v2 (see frontend/data/license/gplv2.txt), like its OBS Studio base. The vendored SQLite amalgamation and FTS5 sources are in the public domain (deps/sqlite/).