Libi

An AI video studio for coding agents.

npm desktop license

npx @nagellabs/libi — or download the desktop app for macOS or Windows.

libi treats video as code. Every frame is a JavaScript function drawing to a canvas, so an AI coding agent — the most capable form of AI available today — can write, edit and refine a video the same way it writes software. You describe what you want in chat; the agent builds the scenes, generates or imports the assets, adds voiceover and music, and you watch it come together in a live preview.

• Chat with Claude Code or Codex. libi drives them over ACP and hands them video tools over MCP.
• Canvas scenes + layered overlays — text, images, video, code and 3D, each with its own timing, position and z-order.
• Real editing tools — timeline, audio mixer with ducking, object tracking, background removal, video analysis.
• Bring any MCP server. Generate clips, voiceover, music or sound effects through fal.ai, ElevenLabs, YouTube download, or anything you connect yourself.
• Fast exports. A trim is a stream copy; overlays composite in a single ffmpeg pass; anything else renders through WebCodecs.
• Local-first. Your media, database and generated assets stay on your machine in ~/.libi/.

libi is in beta. It moves fast and has rough edges. Please tell us about the ones you hit.

---

Requirements

• Node.js 20.9+ (only for the npm package — the desktop app bundles its own runtime)
• A CLI coding agent you're already signed in to — Claude Code or Codex. libi installs the adapters it needs; you bring the account.
• ~1 GB of free disk for what libi downloads on first run (ffmpeg/ffprobe, a Chromium for rendering, the agent adapter). Object tracking and background removal pull their models on demand, later.
• macOS or Windows — Linux support is coming. The Windows installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows will warn on first launch; see below.

Run libi

Desktop app

Download the build for your platform (macOS .dmg / .zip, Windows .exe) from the Releases page and launch it. Nothing else to install. Linux desktop builds are coming in a future release.

On Windows, the installer is not code-signed yet. SmartScreen will say "Windows protected your PC" — choose More info → Run anyway. Code signing is on the way; until it lands, the npm route below is unaffected and needs no such dismissal.

The desktop app updates its own runtime from npm: when a new version ships, Settings → General offers to install it, and it takes effect on the next restart. Most releases are runtime-only and arrive this way, so the newest entry on the Releases page is often older than the version you are running — that is expected, and it is not a sign you are behind. A new download only appears when the desktop shell itself changes.

npm

npx @nagellabs/libi

It opens http://localhost:3456 in your browser once the server is up. If nothing appears — over SSH, in a container, on a machine with no desktop — the URL is printed in the terminal; open it yourself.

Today this is tested on macOS — that's where we build and use libi daily. Broader platform support is on the way.

The first launch sets up ~/.libi/ and downloads the binaries and models libi needs — this takes a few minutes and prints its progress. Every launch after that is fast. If setup fails, it says why and exits rather than starting a half-working app.

Useful flags and environment variables:

npx @nagellabs/libi --port 4000	Serve on a different port (default 3456)
npx @nagellabs/libi --connect-agent [dir]	Bring your own CLI. Serves headless and syncs agent config (instructions, MCP servers, skills) into that directory, so a Claude Code or Codex session started there gets libi's tools. Defaults to the directory you ran it from.
npx @nagellabs/libi --no-open	Don't launch a browser — just print the URL (also LIBI_OPEN=0)
LIBI_HOME=/path/to/dir	Move the data directory somewhere other than ~/.libi
LIBI_DEBUG=1	Verbose MCP transport logging

---

Run from source

If you'd rather run the checkout directly (developed and tested on macOS):

git clone https://github.com/Nagellabs/libi.git
cd libi
npm install
npm run dev            # http://localhost:3456
npm run dev:electron   # …and the desktop shell

Always start libi through npm run dev (i.e. node bin/libi.js), never next dev. The CLI runs an install-and-probe phase before Next.js boots; skipping it leaves the bundled MCP servers uninstalled and the agent with no tools.

npm test               # unit + integration (Vitest)
npm run test:e2e       # end-to-end (Playwright)
npm run test:electron  # desktop end-to-end
npm run lint
npm run db:generate    # regenerate the Drizzle migration after a schema change

Logs land in ~/.libi/logs/ — server.log for Next.js output, libi.log for structured application events (tail -f ~/.libi/logs/libi.log | jq).

Conventions, architecture notes and the rules the codebase is held to live in AGENTS.md.

---

How it fits together

Claude Code / Codex  (subprocess)
     │  ACP over stdio
     ▼
Next.js server  ──  AgentProcessManager · SessionManager · JobManager
     │  stdio
     ▼
MCP server  ──  libi.* tools (pieces, scenes, overlays, audio, files, ffmpeg, tracking…)
     ▼
~/.libi/  ──  SQLite · media storage · logs · bundled binaries

A piece holds a composition: canvas scenes (agent-written draw functions) plus a track of timed, layered overlays and audio clips. The same renderer drives the preview and the canvas export path, so what you see is what you get. Agent actions write the composition, the server pushes an event, and the editor re-renders — there is no hidden local state.

Built on Next.js 16, React 19, Electron, SQLite + Drizzle, Tailwind v4, ffmpeg, WebCodecs (mediabunny), and the Agent Client Protocol + Model Context Protocol SDKs.

---

Privacy

Everything you make stays on your machine. libi sends two kinds of telemetry, both switchable off in Settings → Privacy, and both disabled automatically when you run from a cloned repo:

• Crash and error reports (Sentry) — stack traces and surrounding logs so we can fix what broke. No user identity, no IP addresses, no request bodies; credential-shaped keys and values are scrubbed before anything leaves the machine. Turn it off and no report is sent at all — the toggle takes effect immediately, no restart. LIBI_SENTRY_DISABLED=1 is a hard kill-switch that overrides everything.
• Product analytics (GA4) — bounded, enumerated events like "a piece was created", keyed to a random per-install id. Never file names, prompts, or anything you typed.

Full details: privacy policy.

---

Contributing

Pull requests are not being accepted right now — libi is still in beta. The architecture is moving fast and large parts of it are still settling, so I can't give outside PRs the review they deserve, and I'd rather not leave anyone sitting on a branch that goes stale underneath them. PRs opened against this repository will be closed without review. I'll announce here and in CONTRIBUTING.md when that changes.

Issues, on the other hand, are very welcome and genuinely appreciated. Bug reports, crashes, reproductions, feature requests and any rough edge you hit while actually using libi are the most useful thing you can send us right now. We read them, and we'll do our best to address them.

• Open an issue — the fastest route, and public so others benefit
• A reproduction (steps, and a log excerpt from ~/.libi/logs/libi.log) makes a report dramatically more actionable
• Can't reach the tracker? Email [email protected] — no GitHub account needed
• Anything security-sensitive: [email protected], not a public issue — see SECURITY.md for the disclosure process and threat model

---

License

libi is free and open source under GPL-3.0-only. See SECURITY.md for the security policy and how to report a vulnerability.

Use it for anything, personal or commercial. Modify it, fork it, run it however you like. If you distribute a modified version, ship its source under GPL as well. The videos you make with libi are yours — the license covers libi's code, not your output.

The editor is free forever; an optional paid membership adds cloud services on top (team sharing, backup, managed model usage) and never gates anything already in the box. See LICENSING.md for the plain-English version, and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md for the notices of every production dependency the packaged app redistributes.

Copyright © 2026 Nadav Nagel.