Getting started
Clone the open-source repo, install the requirements, build shardreel and run your first job on your Mac.
Apple Silicon only
shardreel targets M-series Macs. It relies on Metal for Whisper and VideoToolbox for encoding.
shardreel is open source. You run it from a local clone of the repository: github.com/shardreel/clipforge.
Requirements
| Tool | Why it is needed |
|---|---|
| Rust toolchain | Builds the backend |
| bun | Builds the web UI |
| cmake | Builds whisper.cpp, which the Whisper bindings compile |
| ffmpeg with libass | Decoding, filters, encoding, and burned-in captions |
| yt-dlp | Downloading videos from URLs |
Install the command-line tools
brew install cmake yt-dlp ffmpeg-full
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bashffmpeg-full is a keg-only build that includes libass. It does not replace an ffmpeg you already have. shardreel looks for it in /opt/homebrew/opt/ffmpeg-full/bin first and falls back to your PATH.
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/shardreel/clipforge.git
cd clipforgeTo pin a release instead of the latest main, run git tag and git checkout <tag>.
Build the web UI
cd web
bun install
bun run buildRun the app
cargo run --releaseThe first build compiles whisper.cpp and takes a few minutes. When it is ready, the server prints its address:
clipforge listening on http://127.0.0.1:8787Check the setup
Open http://127.0.0.1:8787 and go to Settings. The System card lists each requirement as OK or Missing, with the command that fixes it.
Run your first job
- Open New job.
- Drop in a video, or switch to Path or URL and paste a path or a YouTube or Twitch link.
- Leave the defaults and press Generate clips.
- Watch the stages on the job page. When it finishes, play the clips in the grid.
The first job with speech recognition downloads the Whisper model, about 1.6 GB for the default large-v3-turbo, into ~/.clipforge/models. Later runs reuse it.
Clips are saved to ~/Movies/clipforge/ by default, in a folder named after the video. Change the output folder per job.
Update to the latest version
cd clipforge
git pull
cd web && bun install && bun run build && cd ..
cargo run --releaseYour settings, models and cache live in ~/.clipforge, so updating does not touch them.
Develop the UI
Run the backend and the Vite dev server side by side:
cargo run --release
cd web && bun run devOpen http://localhost:5173. Vite proxies /api to the backend on port 8787.
Contribute
Found a bug or want a feature? Open an issue or send a pull request. Fork the repo, create a branch, run cargo run --release and cd web && bun run dev to test your change, then open a PR against main. If something fails during setup, check Troubleshooting first.