Build from source

This page is for people who want to build Minutist themselves: to audit it, modify it, or satisfy distribution requirements under the AGPL-3.0 licence. See Open source for the licence text and what the source does and does not include.

What the source builds

The repository builds the free local build only: record, transcribe, label speakers, take notes, summarise, and chat, all on your machine. No network calls except the model download you start yourself.

The source does not reproduce the connected tier. The connected tier’s sync relay and MCP connector proxy are hosted services operated separately. The source includes the local MCP server code (the app can serve meeting data over a local loopback socket), but the relay that bridges it to Claude or Codex is a private hosted service and is not in this repository. There is no workaround: you cannot build the connected tier from this source.

Toolchain requirements

You will need:

• Rust, installed via rustup.
• Node.js, for the React/Tiptap frontend. Install via nodejs.org or a version manager.
• Tauri v2 CLI: cargo install tauri-cli.
• A C compiler for your platform (MSVC on Windows, Xcode CLT on macOS, gcc/clang on Linux).
• libclang (Linux only): required by llama-cpp-2 bindings. On Arch-based systems: pacman -S clang.

Caution

The authoritative minimum versions for each tool are in the README at the repository root; that file is updated with each release and takes precedence over this page.

Clone

git clone https://github.com/minutist/minutist.git
cd minutist

Note

The main branch tracks release commits. Development happens on feature branches. If you want the exact source that produced a specific release, check out the corresponding tag; the repository tags page lists the published release tags.

Build

Linux

1. Set LIBCLANG_PATH to where your system libclang.so lives. On Manjaro/Arch: export LIBCLANG_PATH=/usr/lib.
2. Build the frontend:

   cd ui && npm install && npm run build && cd ..

3. Build the app binary:

   cargo tauri build --no-bundle

   The binary lands at target/release/minutist.

macOS

1. Install Xcode Command Line Tools if you have not already: xcode-select --install.
2. Build the frontend:

   cd ui && npm install && npm run build && cd ..

3. Build the app binary:

   cargo tauri build --no-bundle

   The binary lands at target/release/minutist.

Windows

1. Install Visual Studio Build Tools (MSVC) with the C++ workload.
2. Build the frontend from a terminal that has Node on the path:

   cd ui && npm install && npm run build && cd ..

3. From a Developer Command Prompt (or after running VsDevCmd.bat), build the app:

   cargo tauri build --no-bundle

   The binary lands at target\release\minutist.exe.

Run

After building, you can run the binary directly. The app will prompt you to download the on-device models on first launch; that download is the only network operation the free build makes.

./target/release/minutist

If you want models and meeting data stored outside your default data directory, set XDG_DATA_HOME (Linux/macOS) to an absolute path before launching:

XDG_DATA_HOME=/path/to/your/data ./target/release/minutist

Run the test suite

cargo test

Integration tests that touch real model files or audio hardware are gated behind environment variables documented in tests-local.env at the repository root. The default cargo test run skips them.

The connected tier and the MCP relay

The source includes a mcp-server crate that compiles into the binary. When running the free build, that code is present but the relay endpoint it would connect to does not exist; the app has no MCP network endpoint in the free build. If you are auditing for outbound connections, the free binary makes no outbound calls beyond the model download you initiate.

The connector relay server is a private hosted service; its source is not published. (The relay client that runs inside the app is in this repo, under AGPL.) If you are evaluating the connected tier’s connector behaviour, specifically that meeting content is sent to the AI provider when you ask the assistant to read a meeting, see Security for the full account of what moves where.

Licence

Minutist is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence. If you distribute a modified binary, you must make the corresponding source available under the same terms. See Open source for the scope of what this covers and what the hosted relay’s relationship to the licence is.