# Build brief — a focused alternative to Yaps > **Verdict:** Partly, if you narrow it · **Buildability:** 63/100 · **Category:** AI Assistant > **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/yaps > Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Yaps. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting. ## Context **Yaps** — Cross-platform local AI toolbox for dictation, notes, speech, media, web capture, and sync. It currently costs $15/mo. Kinda. A coding agent can one-shot an isolated Yaps feature, such as hotkey dictation, a Markdown notes shell, or local read-aloud, but not the integrated product. Yaps spans native work across macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS, with platform-level text insertion and mobile keyboards, local AI model orchestration, notes and cross-device sync, browser capture, transcription and diarization, speech and media tools, permissions, installers, updates, and long-tail reliability. The honest DIY outcome is a useful single-platform subset, not a replacement for the suite. This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Yaps that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest. ## What you are building Build one honest single-platform subset: local hotkey dictation into the active app plus a Markdown notes vault and read-aloud. - Answer from retrieval over your own notes and files, with sources visible. - A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states. ## Requirements ### Functional - MacOS 14 or later. - Swift 6 and Xcode. - Whisper.cpp and a local speech model. - Microphone, Accessibility, and global-shortcut permissions. - A local Markdown vault with explicit backup and export. ### Non-functional - Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support. - Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle. - Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down. - Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it. ## Implementation brief Build the closest honest single-platform subset of Yaps in an empty repository; do not claim it replaces the full product. Use Swift 6, SwiftUI with AppKit, AVFoundation, and a locally installed whisper.cpp CLI; do not offer alternative stacks. Target macOS 14 or later and make it a menu-bar accessory app with no Dock icon. State in the app and README that this subset covers dictation, Markdown notes, and read-aloud only. Provide one documented command that builds and launches a debug build from a clean clone. The core loop is: hold a global shortcut, record the microphone, transcribe locally, and insert clean text at the active cursor. Default to Control-Space, allow remapping, and do not claim to replace or reliably intercept the Fn key. Capture 16 kHz mono WAV with AVAudioEngine and show a compact recording and transcribing status pill. On release, invoke whisper.cpp with a configurable model path and no network request. Insert with the pasteboard plus Cmd-V, restore the previous clipboard, and leave the text copied when direct insertion cannot be verified. Keep the last 20 transcripts locally with timestamps, copy, retry, delete, and save-as-note actions. Save notes as plain Markdown under ~/Documents/YapsDIY and never hide content in an opaque database. Add a small notes window with create, edit, full-text filename/body search, and a recent-notes list. Add read-aloud for the current note using NSSpeechSynthesizer with voice, rate, pause, resume, and stop controls. Add a custom vocabulary text file whose terms are passed to whisper.cpp as an initial prompt. Keep raw audio only when the user enables it; otherwise delete it after a successful transcript. Store settings in Application Support and make the Markdown vault easy to relocate and back up. Handle denied microphone or Accessibility permission with clear instructions and a retry button. Include visible idle, recording, transcribing, success, and recoverable error states. Add focused tests for settings, history limits, vault file safety, clipboard restoration, and transcription command construction. Add one smoke test that injects a fixture WAV and proves a transcript becomes a Markdown note. Create a README covering setup, model download, permissions, data locations, privacy, backup, and limitations. Do not add accounts, billing, telemetry, analytics, cloud sync, or hidden network calls. Deliberately leave out Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, mobile keyboards, meetings, diarization, captions, voice cloning, media tools, browser capture, and sync. Finish by running the tests and build, fixing failures, and listing the exact commands used. ## Delivery standard - Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code. - Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data. - Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations. - Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states. - Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data. - Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details. - Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey. - Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations. ## Acceptance criteria - [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example. - [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable. - [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state. - [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control. - [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures. - [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified. ## Non-goals Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them: - Native parity across macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS. - Reliable Fn and global-shortcut capture plus cursor insertion across native, browser, terminal, and Electron text surfaces. - Mobile keyboards, browser capture, a Markdown vault, and desktop-to-mobile note sync working as one system. - Bundled and warmed local runtimes for dictation, cleanup, TTS, transcription, diarization, translation, voice, and media tools. - Installers, model downloads, updates, permissions UX, performance tuning, recovery, and cross-platform regression testing. ## What you still own after launch - Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates. - Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change. - Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss. - Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change. ## Risk **Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost. Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No reviewed project implementation is linked yet. ## Prior art Working open-source software you can read, fork, or borrow from before starting: - [whisper.cpp](https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp) — The local speech-to-text engine that makes the personal dictation core realistic --- Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/yaps