Rebost
Private AI that works with your files. What happens on your computer stays on your computer.
Rebost is a desktop application for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It runs an AI on the machine where it is installed and answers questions about documents kept there. Questions go in Chat, the answer is generated locally, and each answer cites the files it drew on.
Documents reach the AI through a Shelf, a folder on the same machine that a conversation can be pointed at. Chat searches the selected Shelf, quotes what it finds, and links each citation back to the file it came from. There are two more ideas to know. A Recipe is a prompt saved for reuse, and House rules are standing instructions that apply to every conversation.
The first launch offers an AI sized for the machine's memory and downloads it. That file stays on disk, and every later answer is generated from it. The application is MIT licensed and free to use, and it works without an account. Rebost uses the network to find and install an AI and to check for a newer release. Documents on a Shelf are not uploaded, and web lookups are a setting that stays off until it is turned on.
Download
The current release is 1.0.0. Installers are published on GitHub Releases, one per target, and the project site is rebost.ai.
| Machine | Installer |
|---|
| Mac with an Apple chip | Mac (Apple chip) |
| Intel Mac | Mac (Intel) |
| Windows 10/11 | Windows |
| Windows on ARM | Windows (ARM) |
| Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+ (Intel/AMD) | Linux (.deb) |
| Fedora 43+ (Intel/AMD) | Linux (.rpm) |
| Arch Linux and its derivatives | AUR: rebost-bin (coming soon) |
| Other Linux distributions (Intel/AMD) | Linux (AppImage), or Flathub (coming soon) |
| Linux on ARM (64-bit) | Linux ARM (.deb), (.rpm), or (AppImage) |
The Mac download is a disk image: open it and drag Rebost into Applications. The Windows download is an installer.
On Linux, the .deb and .rpm packages install Rebost with the distribution's own WebKitGTK and add it to the applications menu. Open them with the software installer, or from a terminal:
sudo apt install ./Rebost-X.Y.Z-Linux-amd64.deb
sudo dnf install ./Rebost-X.Y.Z-Linux-x86_64.rpm
On Arch Linux, EndeavourOS, CachyOS, Manjaro, and Omarchy, Rebost will be in the AUR as rebost-bin, the same build as the .deb packaged for pacman. Until then, use the AppImage. Once it is published:
yay -S rebost-bin
A Flathub release, installable from GNOME Software and KDE Discover on any distribution, is coming soon.
The AppImage carries its own WebKitGTK and runs on other desktop distributions with glibc 2.35 or newer: make it executable (chmod +x Rebost-X.Y.Z-Linux-x86_64.AppImage) and open it. The AI uses the graphics card through Vulkan (Mesa for AMD and Intel, or NVIDIA's driver); the packages recommend the Vulkan loader and Mesa drivers, and without them the AI runs on the processor, more slowly.
Windows 11 already ships the component Rebost uses to draw its windows; on Windows 10 the installer adds WebView2 when it is missing. A regular Windows PC, meaning anything other than Windows on ARM, also needs a graphics driver with Vulkan support from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel.
Once installed, Rebost checks GitHub for a newer release and shows it in the sidebar. Nothing is shown when that check fails. On Linux each package updates itself in its own format; the .deb and .rpm ask for an administrator password to install the update. The AUR package and the Flatpak leave updates to pacman or the software centre, and About says so.
Chat, Shelves, Recipes, and House rules
Chat
Chat is the main window. The installed AI answers each question there without the question leaving the machine. A file can be attached to a single conversation, either through the composer or by dropping it onto Chat; attachments belong to that conversation and do not become a Shelf. When the installed AI and computer support images, an image button also appears: attach or paste a PNG/JPEG, preview it, and ask about it locally. Rebost prepares images to fit the computer and keeps them with the conversation. Picking a Shelf in the composer instead points the question at a whole folder. Answers that used a file carry a citation. Opening the citation shows the passage used for that answer and the source file.
Shelves
A Shelf is how a folder becomes available to Chat. Creating a Shelf and linking a folder, or dropping files into it, is what lets Rebost read those documents and search them later. Linking does not move or copy the folder, and renaming a Shelf inside Rebost leaves the folder on disk untouched. How thoroughly Chat searches is configured per Shelf.
Recipes
A Recipe is a prompt saved once and reopened later against any Shelf. Opening one starts a new conversation with that prompt already in the composer, so a request that comes up every week does not have to be typed again. A saved Recipe can still be edited.
House rules
House rules are standing instructions kept in Settings: tone, language, and anything the AI should never promise. They are written once and applied to every conversation and every Recipe. Settings also holds Online, which allows Chat to look things up on the public web. Online is off until it is turned on, and each query or address is shown for approval before it is sent. Turning it on does not send Shelf documents to the web. Text size (Default, Large, and Larger) and Language for the menus and the rest of the interface are in the same window.
Settings opens from the sidebar or the menu (Linux has no menu bar), or with ⌘, on a Mac and Ctrl+, on Windows and Linux. Text size can also be changed with ⌘+ and ⌘- on a Mac, or Ctrl+ and Ctrl- on Windows and Linux. Explore other AIs is in the same window for cases where the suggested AI is not the right one.
Getting started
A first session usually runs in this order.
- Install Rebost from the release that matches the machine.
- Install the AI offered on first launch, or skip it and install one later from Settings. Rebost refuses an AI the machine cannot run.
- Create a Shelf, then link a folder or drop files into it. Rebost reads those documents so Chat can search them.
- In Chat, select that Shelf and ask. Citations on the answer open the source file.
- Save recurring requests as Recipes, and write House rules once for a consistent tone.
The first message after launch waits while the AI is loaded into memory. Later messages in the same session do not.
A team works the same way, one install per person. Each person runs Rebost on their own machine and points a Shelf at the folder the team already shares, which leaves no server in the middle. docs/team.md covers that setup.
Questions
Is it free? Yes. Rebost is MIT licensed and free to use. There is no paid tier, no seat count, and no usage meter.
Is an account required? No. There is nothing to sign up for and no one to sign in as. The first launch sets up an AI, and Chat works from then on.
Do documents leave the machine? Documents on a Shelf stay on the machine that holds them. Rebost uses the network to find or install an AI and to check for a newer release. The public web is reached only when Online is turned on in Settings, and that setting does not upload Shelf documents.
Which AI does it run? The first launch suggests one sized for the machine's memory and hides any that will not run on it. A different AI can be installed later from Settings. Each AI carries its own license, shown before the download starts.
What hardware is needed? A Mac with an Apple chip or an Intel processor, a Windows 10/11 PC including Windows on ARM, or a 64-bit Linux computer (Intel/AMD or ARM) with a graphical desktop. Running an AI locally also needs several GB of free disk space for the download.
Are phones or Linux supported? Linux is, on Ubuntu 22.04 or newer, Debian 12 or newer, Fedora 43 or newer, and other distributions with glibc 2.35 or newer through the AppImage. Phones are not: Rebost is a desktop application.
Can a team use it? Yes, with one install per person and a Shelf pointed at a shared folder. There is no Rebost account and nothing to administer. See how a small team uses Rebost.
Which languages does the interface use? The menus and the rest of the interface follow the language in Settings. English, Spanish (Spain), and Catalan are maintained. Portuguese, French, Japanese, German, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech, Greek, Danish, and Finnish are in the same picker and still need a native speaker: they were written from the English and Spanish catalogs. System uses the language of the machine where Rebost is installed. How a catalog is added is in docs/i18n.md.
Privacy
Documents on a Shelf stay on the machine that holds them, and reading, searching, and answering all happen there. Counts of personal information are counts, not a legal opinion.
Rebost does reach the network in a few places. Searching for or installing an AI contacts Hugging Face or Ollama, startup may check GitHub for a newer release, and on some Windows and Linux PCs the first chat downloads a faster or more compatible way to run the AI. Online, in Settings, allows Chat to look things up on the public web and is off until it is turned on. docs/privacy.md lists every request.
The application is MIT licensed. An installed AI carries its own license, shown before the download starts: docs/licensing.md.
Anything that looks like local files leaking belongs in SECURITY.md rather than a public issue. Other bugs go to GitHub issues, and a chat stuck while the AI loads is covered in docs/troubleshooting.md.
Develop
Requirements
- macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel), Windows 10/11 (x64 with Vulkan, or ARM64), or Linux (x86_64 or aarch64; Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, Fedora 43+)
- Disk space for a GGUF model (several GB)
- Rust 1.99.1, Node 22.22.2+ on the 22.x line, pnpm 12 (
rust-toolchain.toml and .nvmrc)
- macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools
- Windows: MSVC toolchain. Windows 11 includes WebView2. On Windows 10, install the Evergreen WebView2 Runtime before
pnpm tauri dev. The NSIS installer downloads it when it is missing.
- Linux: WebKitGTK 4.1 and GTK 3 development packages. On Debian and Ubuntu:
sudo apt install build-essential cmake pkg-config file libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev libsoup-3.0-dev librsvg2-dev libdbus-1-dev. On Fedora: sudo dnf install gcc-c++ cmake file webkit2gtk4.1-devel gtk3-devel libsoup3-devel librsvg2-devel dbus-devel.
- First OCR build: CMake and a C++ compiler (xberg compiles Tesseract)
Run locally
pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev
pnpm tauri dev without a prior pnpm fetch-engine downloads the pinned llama.cpp archive on first chat. Run pnpm fetch-engine once so first chat can stay offline.
Checks and installers
pnpm check # svelte-check
pnpm format:check
cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml
pnpm test # Vitest
pnpm tauri build # unsigned DMG / NSIS / AppImage, deb, rpm
pnpm tauri build writes a DMG under src-tauri/target/release/bundle/dmg/ (Apple Silicon or Intel, matching the build host unless --target is passed), an NSIS installer under src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis/, or on Linux an AppImage, .deb, and .rpm under src-tauri/target/release/bundle/. Without signing credentials the installer is unsigned, and Gatekeeper will warn on macOS. See docs/signing.md.
./scripts/reset.sh (macOS and Linux) or ./scripts/reset.ps1 (Windows) returns the app to first-run state, keeping Shelf folders on disk. Settings → Reset Rebost does the same from the running app. cargo run --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml --example seed loads demo data.
Contributing, commands, and architecture: CONTRIBUTING.md, docs/development.md, docs/releasing.md, docs/architecture.md, docs/engine.md.
Docs
License
MIT. Trademark: docs/branding.md.
