Codfish

A desktop caption editor built with Tauri v2 + Preact. Transcribes audio/video using WhisperX and lets you edit, time, and export captions.

Architecture

• App (Tauri/Rust + Preact) — the editor UI and file management
• Sidecar (Python/PyInstaller) — the transcription engine, downloaded on first launch
• The app and sidecar are versioned independently (v* and sidecar-v* tags)
• The sidecar ships in three variants: CPU (Windows), CPU (macOS arm64), and CUDA (Windows)
• GPU detection happens at install time — users with Nvidia GPUs get the CUDA variant

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• Rust (via rustup)
• Windows: no extra requirements
• macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)

Running locally

npm install
npx tauri dev

The app will show the sidecar setup screen if no sidecar binary is installed. For local sidecar development, build it with python sidecar/build.py (see below) — this places the binary in src-tauri/binaries/ for Tauri to find.

Sidecar development

python -m venv sidecar/.venv-cpu
# Windows: sidecar\.venv-cpu\Scripts\activate
# macOS:   source sidecar/.venv-cpu/bin/activate
pip install -r sidecar/requirements.txt
python sidecar/fetch_ffmpeg.py
python sidecar/build.py

For CUDA builds:

python -m venv sidecar/.venv-cuda
# Windows: sidecar\.venv-cuda\Scripts\activate
pip install -r sidecar/requirements-cuda.txt
python sidecar/fetch_ffmpeg.py
python sidecar/build.py --cuda

Releasing

App release

1. Bump version in package.json, src-tauri/tauri.conf.json, and src-tauri/Cargo.toml
2. Run cargo update --workspace in src-tauri/
3. Commit, tag, and push:

   git tag v0.5.6
   git push origin main v0.5.6

4. CI builds Windows (NSIS) and macOS (DMG) installers and creates a draft release
5. Publish the draft on GitHub

Sidecar release

1. Commit any sidecar changes and push
2. Tag and push:

   git tag sidecar-v0.1.1
   git push origin sidecar-v0.1.1

3. CI builds Windows + macOS CPU variants and the Windows CUDA variant, and creates a draft release
4. Publish the draft on GitHub

Release the sidecar before the app so new sidecar features are available when users update.

CI/CD

Workflows

• Release App (.github/workflows/release-app.yml) — triggered by v* tags, builds Windows + macOS
• Release Sidecar (.github/workflows/release-sidecar.yml) — triggered by sidecar-v* tags, builds CPU variants

Required secrets

Secret	Purpose
TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY	Minisign private key for update signing
TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY_PASSWORD	Password for the signing key
CODFISH_GH_PAT	Fine-grained PAT (Issues: read/write) for in-app bug reporter

Build-time environment

The app reads CODFISH_GH_PAT at compile time (via src-tauri/.env locally, or the CI secret). It is XOR-encoded into the binary — never stored as plaintext in source.

macOS notes

• Unsigned builds require xattr -cr /Applications/Codfish.app or System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway
• macOS Sequoia removed the right-click > Open workaround for unsigned apps
• An Apple Developer account ($99/yr) eliminates these warnings via code signing and notarization
• ffmpeg is fetched as a prebuilt LGPL binary (from the ffmpeg-*-codfish.* release) and bundled into the sidecar — no Homebrew ffmpeg needed

License

Codfish is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. You are free to use, modify, and redistribute the source code under those terms.

Bundled and dependent components are licensed separately — see THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md. Notably, the bundled ffmpeg is built from source under LGPL terms with no GPL components.

Trademark

"Codfish" is a trademark of Jared Bohlken. The Apache-2.0 license grants rights to the source code only — it does not grant permission to use the Codfish name in derivative works or forks. If you fork this project, please use a different name.

Support the project

Codfish is built and maintained by one person in their spare time. If it's useful to you, consider sponsoring the project on GitHub. Sponsorships are what make continued development possible.