Quixote

Native macOS app for testing LLM prompts on local structured data.

Direct Download | Website | Releases

Import a CSV, TSV, JSON, or XLSX file, write prompts that reference any column, run them through one or more LLM providers, inspect outputs and raw responses, then export the results.

products.csv / customers.xlsx / data.json
        |
        v
+-------------------+
| Local data table  |
| rows + variables  |
+-------------------+
     |        |        |
     v        v        v
Prompt A  Prompt B  Prompt C
     |        |        |
     v        v        v
Model(s)  Model(s)  Model(s)
     |        |        |
     +--------+--------+
              v
Enriched result columns + stats + CSV export

Features

Data

• Local files - Open CSV, TSV, tab-delimited, JSON, and XLSX files.
• Delimiter detection - CSV parsing detects comma, tab, semicolon, and pipe-delimited files.
• Excel import - XLSX support reads the first worksheet and treats the first row as headers.
• JSON import - JSON support reads top-level arrays of objects.
• Change detection - File content is hashed so changed files can be re-run intentionally.

Prompting

• Multiple prompts per file - Keep several prompt tabs attached to the same dataset.
• Row variables - Reference any file column inside prompts and system messages using {{column_name}}.
• Model parameters - Configure temperature, max tokens, top-p, and reasoning effort where supported.
• Run limits - Run all rows or quick samples like first 10, 100, or 1000 rows.

Providers

• Built-in providers - OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, and LM Studio.
• Custom APIs - Connect any OpenAI-compatible endpoint with a custom base URL.
• Model refresh - Pull model lists from providers that expose /v1/models.
• Manual models - Add model IDs manually for providers that don't expose /v1/models.

Runs & Results

• Concurrent processing - Run rows with configurable concurrency and rate limits.
• Pause and resume - Pause active work and restore queued runs from disk.
• Retry failed outputs - Re-run all failed rows or just one.
• Output detail - Inspect content, raw provider responses, status, tokens, cost, latency, similarity, and ROUGE.
• Copy output - Copy content or raw response from the detail sidebar.

Stats & Export

• Run stats - Track progress, throughput, latency, token usage, and cost.
• Per-model stats - Compare model performance and quality metrics.
• Similarity metrics - Optional cosine similarity and ROUGE-1/2/L metrics.
• Caching - Identical requests hit a local cache instead of calling the provider again.
• CSV export - Export original columns plus prompt output and selected metrics.

Privacy

• Local-first data - Source files are read locally by the app.
• Keychain secrets - API keys are stored in the macOS Keychain.
• Local providers - Ollama and LM Studio can run without API keys on local OpenAI-compatible endpoints.

Screenshots

Screenshot Demo Data

For product screenshots, use samples/seo-products.csv with the prompts in samples/seo-humanize-prompts.md. The sample dataset is an ecommerce catalog for generating humanized SEO descriptions, SEO titles, and meta descriptions.

Use samples/seo-provider-models.csv as a reference list for provider/model cards in screenshots: OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, LM Studio, and custom OpenAI-compatible APIs.

Prerequisites

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.
• Xcode with command-line tools.
• Homebrew (brew.sh).
• XcodeGen (brew install xcodegen, or make setup).

Swift packages are resolved by Xcode. The marketing site uses Astro and Node dependencies under site/.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/c0/quixote.git
cd quixote

make setup      # install xcodegen once
make generate   # generate Quixote.xcodeproj from project.yml
make dev        # build and launch the debug app

The Xcode project is generated from project.yml. If you change project.yml, run make generate again. Do not edit generated project settings by hand unless you intend to regenerate and preserve the change in project.yml.

Command-line build

make build

Site

make site-dev    # run the Astro site locally
make site-build  # build the site

Project Structure

Quixote/
+-- Quixote/          # Swift app source
|   +-- Models/       # Codable models, providers, run/result types
|   +-- Parsers/      # CSV, JSON, and XLSX import
|   +-- Protocols/    # File parser and LLM service interfaces
|   +-- Services/     # OpenAI-compatible service, cache, keychain, rate limiting
|   +-- ViewModels/   # Workspace, prompts, settings, processing, results, stats
|   +-- Views/        # SwiftUI/AppKit macOS UI
+-- site/             # Astro landing page and appcast assets
+-- assets/           # App icon, design system assets, screenshots
+-- docs/design/      # Design references
+-- scripts/          # Release pipeline
+-- project.yml       # XcodeGen source of truth
+-- Makefile          # Common dev and release commands

Architecture

Quixote is a SwiftUI macOS app with AppKit bridges where native behavior is needed. View models handle workspace state, prompt editing, provider settings, processing, results, stats, and export.

The processing pipeline parses a local table into rows and columns, expands each prompt per row, sends requests through an OpenAI-compatible adapter, persists results, caches equivalent responses, and refreshes the table view, detail sidebar, and stats panel.

The direct-download build uses Sparkle for updates. The public site is an Astro project that serves the download page, social metadata, and Sparkle appcast.

Dependencies

Package	Purpose
Sparkle	Direct-download app updates
CoreXLSX	XLSX parsing
Astro	Static marketing site
XcodeGen	Generates Quixote.xcodeproj from project.yml

Quixote also uses Apple frameworks including SwiftUI, AppKit, Foundation, CryptoKit, UniformTypeIdentifiers, and Security/Keychain APIs.

Common Dev Tasks

Add or change providers

Update provider defaults and model identity behavior in the model layer, then route requests through the OpenAI-compatible service. Provider settings should preserve API keys in Keychain and keep provider profile IDs in result/cache identity.

Add a file parser

Add a parser under Quixote/Parsers/, conform it to FileParser, and make sure rows preserve stable column names and row ordering for prompt interpolation and exports.

Update UI styling

Shared colors, spacing, and button styles live in Quixote/Views/QuixoteTheme.swift. Design references live under assets/design-system/ and docs/design/.

Update the site

Edit Astro files under site/, then run:

make site-build

Release

The release script bumps the app version, archives, exports, creates a DMG, notarizes, staples, updates the Sparkle appcast, commits release metadata, tags, pushes, creates a GitHub Release, and verifies the Pages deploy.

make release VERSION=x.y.z