NitroAI

Turn any lecture, PDF, or video into study notes, flashcards, quizzes, and a study chat — free, and private by default.

⬇️ Download the app

Click the link for your computer — it downloads, you open it, that's it.

Your computer	Download
🍎 Mac — Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 — most Macs since ~2020)	⬇ Download for Mac
🍎 Mac — older Intel models	⬇ Download for Intel Mac
🪟 Windows — 10 or 11	⬇ Download for Windows

Not sure which Mac you have? Click the Apple menu () at the top-left of your screen → About This Mac. If it says Apple M1/M2/M3/M4, use the Apple Silicon link; if it says Intel, use the Intel link.

After it downloads, open the file and follow the installer. The very first time you launch NitroAI:

• On Mac — it just opens on a double-click, no warnings. ✅ (The app is signed and notarized by Apple.)
• On Windows — you'll see a blue "Windows protected your PC" box the first time. That's normal for a brand-new app — click More info → Run anyway and it opens (and won't ask again). Step-by-step below.

Just want to use NitroAI? The links above are everything you need — enjoy. Are you a developer? Don't download the installer; run it from source instead so you have the code. You can also browse all versions on the Releases page.

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NitroAI is an open-source, local-first study app. Point it at a document, a website, a YouTube link, or an audio file and it generates clean notes (with math), spaced-repetition flashcards, quizzes, and a chat that knows your material. You can run it fully locally (no account, no cloud, nothing leaves your machine) or bring your own OpenAI / Anthropic key for top-tier quality. There is no NitroAI subscription, ever.

Important

This is a starting point, not a finished product. It's an open-source foundation meant to be forked, extended, and improved. It works and it's genuinely useful, but expect rough edges — treat it as a solid base to build on rather than a polished commercial app.

Note

Windows and macOS are both tested and working. One Windows caveat: automatic setup of the local AI runtime (Ollama) isn't wired up there yet — on Windows, install Ollama once and NitroAI will use it, or just use a cloud key. (On macOS it's fully automatic.)

First time opening on Windows

The Windows installer isn't code-signed yet, so Windows Defender SmartScreen stops it the first time with a blue popup: "Windows protected your PC." The app is fine — this happens to every new app that doesn't have a (paid) Windows certificate. To run it:

1. Click the small More info link in that popup.
2. A Run anyway button appears at the bottom — click it. Windows remembers your choice and won't ask again.

If you don't see "Run anyway," instead right-click the downloaded NitroAI-Setup-Windows.exe → Properties, tick Unblock near the bottom, click OK, then run it.

Maintainers: the SmartScreen warning disappears entirely once the Windows build is signed with an Authenticode certificate (macOS is already signed/notarized in this repo). See Signing your own builds — add the WIN_CSC_LINK / WIN_CSC_KEY_PASSWORD secrets and it's automatic. (Note: brand-new Windows certs can still show SmartScreen until they build up download "reputation," unless you buy an EV certificate.)

How it works

NitroAI is a small desktop shell around a local web app. When you open it, the app starts a tiny local server on your machine, shows it in a window, keeps it alive, and shuts it down when you quit. That local server is what does the things a plain web page can't — extracting YouTube transcripts with yt-dlp and managing the local AI runtime — so you never install those tools by hand.

Two ways to run the AI

You pick one on first launch (and can switch any time in Settings):

• Fully local — when you choose this, NitroAI automatically downloads and starts a local AI runtime (Ollama) and pulls a small, capable model (~2 GB, one time). Everything then runs on your device: no key, no cloud, no cost. Provisioning only ever happens if you pick local — cloud users never download a model.
• Bring your own key — paste an OpenAI (sk-…) or Anthropic (sk-ant-…) key for the highest-quality notes, quizzes, chat, and podcast voices. The key is stored in your OS keychain and used only to call your provider directly.

Your notes and generated content live only on your machine (in the app's local database); you can export everything from Settings at any time.

For developers

Requires Node ≥ 20.19 (Node 21.x is not supported — use 20.19+ or 22 LTS).

git clone https://github.com/Blueturboguy07/NitroAI.git
cd NitroAI
npm install

npm run dev      # Vite dev server (hot reload) — includes the YouTube helper
npm run serve    # build once, then serve the app + helpers at http://localhost:4180
npm run app      # build, then launch the full desktop shell (Electron)

Build installers locally:

npm run dist:mac   # → release/NitroAI-<version>-<arch>.dmg
npm run dist:win   # → release/NitroAI-Setup-<version>.exe

Or let CI do it: push a tag (git tag v0.1.0 && git push --tags) and the release workflow builds macOS + Windows installers and attaches them to a GitHub Release.

Other scripts: npm test (Vitest), npm run typecheck.

Project layout

src/            React app (UI + all generation/engine/ingest logic, TypeScript)
  lib/engine/   provider abstraction: OpenAI, Anthropic, and local Ollama
  lib/ingest/   text / url / youtube / pdf / docx / audio → normalized text
  lib/generation/  notes, flashcards, quiz, podcast, chat
server/         the local server the desktop shell runs
  httpServer.mjs  serves the built app + /api/youtube-extract + /api/local/*
  ytdlp.mjs       yt-dlp download + caption/audio extraction
  ollama.mjs      Ollama install / serve / model-pull lifecycle
electron/       the desktop shell (starts the server, opens the window)

Signing your own builds

By default the release workflow produces ad-hoc-signed builds — valid, but not notarized, so users get a one-time OS warning. If you have signing certificates, add them as GitHub repo secrets (Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions) and every tagged build is automatically signed and notarized — installers then open with no warning at all. No code changes needed; the build detects the secrets.

macOS (needs a paid Apple Developer account and a Developer ID Application certificate):

Secret	What it is
CSC_LINK	Your Developer ID Application cert, exported from Keychain as a .p12, then base64-encoded: base64 -i cert.p12 | pbcopy
CSC_KEY_PASSWORD	The password you set when exporting the .p12
APPLE_ID	Your Apple ID email
APPLE_APP_SPECIFIC_PASSWORD	An app-specific password for that Apple ID (not your login password)
APPLE_TEAM_ID	Your 10-character Team ID (Apple Developer → Membership)

Windows (optional — needs an Authenticode code-signing certificate):

Secret	What it is
WIN_CSC_LINK	Your code-signing cert as a base64-encoded .pfx
WIN_CSC_KEY_PASSWORD	The .pfx password

Then cut a release: git tag v0.1.3 && git push --tags. That's it — nothing else to configure.

Tech

React 19 · Vite · Tailwind · Electron shell · Ollama (local) · OpenAI / Anthropic (cloud) · KaTeX · FSRS spaced repetition. No backend, no telemetry, no account.

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later. Fork it, ship it, improve it — just keep it open.