Spool is a macOS menu bar app for recording conversations, generating transcripts, and writing post-call Markdown summaries to a folder you control.

It is designed for people who want a lightweight native app instead of a meeting bot, cloud dashboard, or locked-in note system.

If you want to build your own version or understand the full product and engineering plan, start with SPEC.md.

• Lives in the macOS menu bar with no Dock icon
• Captures microphone and system audio
• Produces transcript artifacts for each session
• Generates a Markdown post-call summary with OpenAI
• Schedules a join-and-record reminder for calendar meetings with join links
• Writes everything into a user-selected output directory

Each session is written into its own folder under your chosen output root:

Calls/
  2026-03-17_21-14-01_customer-kickoff/
    events.jsonl
    logs.txt
    session.json
    transcript.raw.txt
    transcript.txt
    2026-03-17_customer-kickoff.md

Spool tries to derive a useful session title from the transcript and summary so filenames are descriptive rather than generic.

This repo is usable, but still early.

Working now:

• menu bar-only app shell
• configurable output folder
• Keychain-backed OpenAI API key storage
• microphone and system audio capture
• transcript artifact generation
• OpenAI summary generation with gpt-5-nano
• installable app bundle via build script

Still rough:

• global hotkeys are intentionally disabled for now
• error handling is improving, but not fully polished
• summary quality depends on transcript quality
• signing, notarization, and release packaging are not finished

• macOS 15+
• Xcode 16+ command line tools
• an OpenAI API key

Spool currently depends on:

• FluidAudio

Debug build:

swift build

Build and install to /Applications/Spool.app:

bash scripts/build_swift_app.sh

Launch the installed app:

open /Applications/Spool.app

On first launch, Spool will ask you to finish setup in Settings:

1. Choose an output folder.
2. Paste your OpenAI API key.
3. Grant microphone permission.
4. Grant system audio recording permission.
5. Grant calendar access so Spool can find upcoming meetings with join links.
6. Grant notification permission so Spool can show the meeting reminder banner.

The API key is stored in macOS Keychain, not in a checked-in config file.

• MicCapture records your microphone input.
• SystemAudioCapture records system audio for the remote side of a call.
• StreamingTranscriber and TranscriptionEngine turn audio into transcript events.
• OpenAISummaryService generates the Markdown summary.
• SessionStorage owns folder creation, transcript files, logs, and session metadata.

Sources/Spool/App/             App lifecycle and menu bar shell
Sources/Spool/Audio/           Microphone and system audio capture
Sources/Spool/Transcription/   Transcription pipeline
Sources/Spool/Summary/         OpenAI summary integration
Sources/Spool/Services/        Recording lifecycle and session storage
Sources/Spool/Models/          Settings and session models
Sources/Spool/Views/           Settings UI
scripts/                       Build and install scripts

Spool is built around user-owned local artifacts:

• transcripts are written to your chosen folder
• summaries are written as Markdown files
• the OpenAI API key is stored in Keychain

Audio and transcript content will be sent to OpenAI for summary generation when summarization is enabled.

This project is still moving quickly. If you want to contribute:

• keep changes native and macOS-first
• prefer small, reviewable patches
• avoid adding heavy dependencies unless they materially improve the capture or transcript pipeline
• preserve the install flow in scripts/build_swift_app.sh

See AGENTS.md for repo-specific guidance for coding agents and contributors.