# merkwerk

> Meeting notes and a daily work log, made on your Mac. Local-first, private, open source (MIT) and free.

merkwerk is a macOS app. It records calls (your microphone as `me`, system audio as `them`), transcribes them on the Mac, writes meeting notes with a local language model, keeps a daily work log from window text, and answers questions about all of it over MCP. Nothing is uploaded: no account, no bot joins the call, no telemetry.

## Facts

- Platform: macOS 14.6 or newer, Apple Silicon. Intel Macs can build from source with cargo.
- Price: free. License: MIT. Source: https://github.com/ArzelaAscoIi/merkwerk
- Speech recognition: NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 (25 languages) or whisper, on the Mac. The model downloads once (about 670 MB).
- Notes: any OpenAI-compatible LLM; defaults to Ollama on localhost (gemma4). LM Studio works too.
- Notes format: next steps with owners and dates first, then decisions, then short topic sections.
- Work log: reads window text through macOS Accessibility. No screenshots, no OCR. Each night the day becomes a log grouped by project.
- Storage: plain files in `~/merkwerk` (JSON, Markdown, WAV).
- Network: only the one-time model download and the LLM endpoint you configure (localhost by default).
- Consent: only record people who agreed to it. merkwerk asks before each call by default.

## Install

```
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ArzelaAscoIi/merkwerk/main/install.sh | sh
ollama pull gemma4
```

`install.sh` downloads the latest release, checks its SHA-256 and installs `~/Applications/merkwerk.app`. The app downloads the speech model on first start.

## MCP

```
claude mcp add merkwerk -- merkwerk mcp
```

Then ask your assistant things like "what did Lena promise this week?".

## Compared with cloud note takers

- Granola, Otter, Fireflies, Fathom: process audio in the cloud; Otter, Fireflies and Fathom send a bot to the call by default; paid per seat after a free tier.
- Screenpipe: also local, but records the screen; paid app.
- merkwerk: local, no bot, text-only work log, free.

## Links

- Website: https://merkwerk-website.vercel.app/
- Source and README: https://github.com/ArzelaAscoIi/merkwerk
- Releases: https://github.com/ArzelaAscoIi/merkwerk/releases
- Privacy policy: https://merkwerk-website.vercel.app/privacy