Your meetings. Your data. Your machine.
Free, open-source meeting intelligence that runs entirely on your desktop. Record, transcribe, and pull out action items. Nothing leaves your computer.
LifeDash records your meetings, transcribes them locally with Whisper, generates briefs, and pulls out action items. No cloud. No accounts. Push those action items straight to a built-in Kanban board, brainstorm with AI, track your time. One app.
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| Windows 10+ | Available. Download the installer |
| macOS | Planned. Contributions welcome |
| Linux | Planned. Contributions welcome |
| Feature | LifeDash | Otter.ai | Fireflies | Fathom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local processing | Yes | No | No | No |
| Data leaves your machine | Never | Always | Always | Always |
| Works offline | Yes | No | No | No |
| Meeting transcription | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI briefs & summaries | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Action item extraction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Project management | Yes | No | No | No |
| Bring your own AI key | Yes | No | No | No |
| Open source | Yes | No | No | No |
| Price | Free | $204/yr | $216/yr | $384/yr |
Just want to use it? Grab the installer. No dev tools needed.
- Go to the latest release
- Download
LifeDash-X.X.X-Setup.exe - Run the installer
- Open LifeDash, add your AI API key in the setup wizard, and start recording
The app uses an embedded database and runs fully offline. No accounts, no cloud, nothing to configure beyond the installer.
- Record system audio + microphone
- Real-time transcription (local Whisper or cloud providers)
- AI-generated meeting briefs and summaries
- Automatic action item extraction
- Speaker diarization and meeting analytics
- Searchable transcript archive
- Meeting templates (standup, retro, planning, etc.)
- Turn action items into Kanban cards in one click
- Link meetings to projects
- Drag-and-drop cards with customizable columns
- Card detail view with rich text, comments, checklists, due dates
- Labels, tags, and search across all projects
- Card Agent: AI assistant per task (tool-calling, checklist management, research)
- Project Agent: AI assistant per project (cross-board intelligence)
- Background Agents: Autonomous project analysis and insights
- Brainstorm Sessions: Conversational AI for ideation with project context
- Idea Repository: Capture, tag, analyze, and convert ideas to projects
- Pomodoro-style focus sessions
- Billable time tracking with hourly rates
- Project-level time reports
- CSV export for invoicing
- All data stored locally in embedded PostgreSQL (PGlite)
- Audio recordings stay on your machine
- AI uses YOUR API keys. We never see your data
- No accounts, no cloud sync, no telemetry
- Encrypted API key storage via OS keychain
- Open source. Read the code yourself
- Crash recovery — The app takes periodic snapshots of your work. If it shuts down unexpectedly, you get a recovery dialog on next launch to restore exactly where you left off
- Database integrity checks — Every startup verifies your data is intact across all tables, with automatic retry if the database is slow to connect
- Atomic backup/restore — Restores run inside a database transaction. If anything goes wrong mid-restore, the whole thing rolls back and your original data stays untouched
- Structured logging — Daily log files with automatic rotation make it easy to diagnose issues without digging through console output
- Graceful AI degradation — If your AI provider is down or misconfigured, you get fallback summaries and clear error messages instead of crashes or silent failures
- Keyboard accessible — Every modal in the app traps focus properly, cycles with Tab/Shift+Tab, and closes with Escape. Screen readers work out of the box
- Input validation everywhere — Every IPC channel validates its inputs at runtime with Zod schemas, not just at compile time
- Optional crash reporting — Opt-in Sentry integration strips all personal data (file paths, API keys) before sending. Off by default, always under your control
For developers and contributors. Most users should download the installer instead.
- Node.js 18+ (includes npm)
- Git
- Windows: Visual Studio Build Tools with "Desktop development with C++" workload (needed for native modules)
git clone https://github.com/Lab-51/lifedash.git
cd lifedash
npm install
npm startNo database setup. The app uses PGlite (embedded PostgreSQL) and runs migrations on first launch.
- AI API keys: Set them in the Settings page. Keys are stored using OS-level encryption via Electron safeStorage.
- Whisper model: Download and manage local Whisper models from Settings.
- Transcription providers: Deepgram and AssemblyAI can be configured as cloud alternatives to local Whisper.
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
npm install fails with node-gyp errors |
Install Visual Studio Build Tools with C++ workload |
npm install fails with Python errors |
Install Python 3.x and set npm config set python python3 |
| App shows white screen on start | Run npm run lint to check for TypeScript errors |
| Script | Description |
|---|---|
npm start |
Launch in dev mode |
npm run package |
Package for distribution |
npm run make |
Build platform installers |
npm run lint |
Type-check with TypeScript |
npm test |
Run tests |
npm run test:watch |
Run tests in watch mode |
npm run db:generate |
Generate migration files |
npm run db:migrate |
Apply migrations |
npm run db:studio |
Open Drizzle Studio (database GUI) |
| Category | Technology |
|---|---|
| Runtime | Electron |
| Frontend | React 19 + TypeScript |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS 4 |
| Database | PGlite (embedded WASM PostgreSQL) |
| ORM | Drizzle ORM |
| AI SDK | Vercel AI SDK |
| AI Providers | OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, Deepgram, AssemblyAI |
| Transcription | @fugood/whisper.node (local) |
| Drag and Drop | @atlaskit/pragmatic-drag-and-drop |
| State | Zustand |
| Rich Text | TipTap |
| Animation | Framer Motion |
| Icons | Lucide React |
| Routing | React Router |
| Build | Vite |
| Testing | Vitest |
src/
main/ # Electron main process
db/ # Schema, migrations, connection
ipc/ # IPC handlers (100+ channels across 17 modules)
services/ # Business logic (AI, transcription, backup, etc.)
workers/ # Background workers (transcription)
preload/ # Electron preload bridge
renderer/ # React frontend
components/ # Reusable UI components
hooks/ # Custom React hooks
pages/ # Route pages (Board, Meetings, Ideas, etc.)
services/ # Frontend service layer
stores/ # Zustand state management
styles/ # Global styles
shared/ # Types and utilities shared across processes
Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on reporting issues and submitting pull requests.
This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. For commercial licensing inquiries, contact the author directly.