Wobu

Wobu is a local-first, AI-assisted desktop app for building coherent fictional worlds and producing consistent concept art. Define lore, visual style, species, cultures, places, characters, and props once; Wobu resolves that hierarchy into an attributed prompt whenever you generate an image.

Projects are ordinary, self-contained .wobu directories. Notes remain readable Markdown, assets remain files, and the disposable search index stays outside the project. Wobu can work with a local ComfyUI installation or connect directly to supported providers using your own credentials—there is no Wobu-operated inference proxy.

Beta software: release bundles are currently unsigned. Only download them from this repository's GitHub Releases page and review the platform-specific installation guidance.

What Wobu does

• Organizes a world as a hierarchy of reusable influences instead of isolated prompts.
• Turns rough notes into editable, structured descriptions with Anthropic or Gemini.
• Compiles transparent prompts whose fragments remain attributable, mutable, and weightable.
• Uses reference images as silhouette, structure, palette, material, mood, or pose context.
• Generates concept images through local ComfyUI or Gemini, with history, replay, variants, and pin-to-reference workflows.
• Supports shared-folder collaboration, conflict-safe writes, and ticket-based peer-to-peer sync.
• Provides boards, relationship graphs, Forge workflows, wiki export, and concept-mesh viewing.

Concept 3D creation is still partial; the current UI can view and export existing meshes. See the roadmap for exact feature status.

Getting started

Install a beta release

Download the bundle for Linux, macOS, or Windows from Releases. Builds are unsigned and update manually, so follow the release guide before bypassing an operating-system warning.

Once Wobu opens, create a project from the Launcher. Start with its Style Guide and World Canon, add broad world layers before individual characters, then configure providers in Settings. The included user guide covers the complete workflow. It is also read into the app itself — press F1, or use the Guide button on the mode rail — and published to https://wobu.app/guide/.

Run from source

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 22 and npm;
• the Rust toolchain (version 1.97 is pinned and installed automatically by rustup);
• the Tauri 2 system prerequisites for your platform.

git clone https://github.com/krazyjakee/wobu.git
cd wobu
npm ci
cd src-tauri && rustup toolchain install --no-self-update && cd ..
npm run tauri dev

npm run dev starts only the Vite frontend. Use npm run tauri dev for normal development so the webview can reach the Rust commands. To launch through Cargo instead, use ./scripts/cargo-run.sh; it starts Vite, waits for port 1420, and runs cargo run from src-tauri/.

Provider configuration

Credentials entered in the app are stored per installation in the operating-system keychain and never in a project directory. For development only, copy the documented template:

cp .env.example .env

Fill only the providers you intend to exercise. Credential resolution is keychain, then environment, then unconfigured; .env support is compiled out of release builds. ComfyUI uses http://127.0.0.1:8188 by default and can be changed in Settings. See Providers & BYOK for capabilities and security details.

Privacy and legal

Wobu operates no servers. There is no account, no inference proxy, no telemetry, no crash reporting and no update check; the application never contacts us, because there is nowhere for it to contact. Content leaves your machine only when you invoke a feature that uses a provider you configured, and then it goes directly to that provider under your own credentials.

• Privacy policy — every outbound destination and what is sent to it, what stays on disk and where, and how credentials are held in the OS keychain.
• Terms of use and EULA — the MIT grant restated for a downloaded binary, the absence of warranty, and how provider terms and generated-content ownership pass through to your own agreement with each provider.

Both documents are shown in the app under Settings › Legal and ship beside the binary in every installer, alongside LICENSE and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

Development

npm run check              # typecheck, lint, formatting check, frontend tests
npm run check:code-health  # dead-code and duplication gates
npm run build              # production frontend build

cd src-tauri
cargo fmt --all --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace

Frontend tests use Vitest, Testing Library, and jsdom. Rust behavior is tested within the workspace crates. Run a focused frontend test during iteration with npm test -- path/to/file.test.tsx, or a focused Rust package with cargo test -p wobu-store from src-tauri/.

Architecture

The UI uses React, TypeScript, Vite, Zustand, TanStack Query, and plain CSS. Tauri commands connect it to a Rust workspace split by responsibility:

Path	Responsibility
src/	UI components, client state, hooks, styles, and frontend tests
src-tauri/src/	Desktop shell, commands, application state, and provider orchestration
src-tauri/crates/wobu-core	Domain types, schemas, kinds, links, and validation
src-tauri/crates/wobu-store	Markdown/project I/O, assets, indexing, conflicts, and export
src-tauri/crates/wobu-influence	Influence resolution and prompt compilation
src-tauri/crates/wobu-llm	Text-provider adapters and streamed Enhance output
src-tauri/crates/wobu-imagine	Image and mesh backend adapters
src-tauri/crates/wobu-jobs	Queues, cancellation, progress, and retries
src-tauri/crates/wobu-sync	Peer identity, tickets, manifests, and blob transfer

Start with the design documentation index for the data model, architecture, sharing guarantees, influence engine, provider behavior, acceptance evidence, and release process.

Contributing

Read AGENTS.md for repository conventions and the checks expected before a pull request. Keep changes focused, add regression coverage for behavioral fixes, update user-facing documentation with feature changes, and never commit provider credentials or canonical user data.