REEL 00 / INTRODUCTION · TC 00:00:00:00
Cut here,not in the cloud.
Cutlass is a desktop video editor written in Rust. The timeline, the preview, and the export all run on your machine: your footage never leaves it. Edit by hand, or just say what you want and the built-in assistant makes the cut. Open source, early alpha, and honest about both.
A working editor, not a promise.
Everything in this ledger is in the current build. It is alpha software (expect rough edges), but the foundation is real and you can cut footage with it now.
- 01Prompt-to-edit assistantDescribe an edit in plain words; it runs as real, undoable timeline commands.■ SHIPPED
- 02Multi-lane timelineVideo and audio lanes with linked clips, built on a real data model.■ SHIPPED
- 03Trim, split, move, rippleEvery edit is a deterministic command: replayable and inspectable.■ SHIPPED
- 04Effects & transitionsA GPU effect engine, clip-to-clip transitions, and adjustment layers.■ SHIPPED
- 05Keyframe animationAnimate position, scale, rotation, opacity, and effect settings over time.■ SHIPPED
- 06Full audio suiteVolume envelopes, fades, varispeed, ducking, noise reduction, beat detection.■ SHIPPED
- 07Live preview & MP4 exportGPU preview with audio sync; H.264 / AAC rendered on your hardware.■ SHIPPED
- 08Undo, redo & local projectsFull history, and plain .cutlass files you can see on disk.■ SHIPPED
Edits you can trust, replay, and undo.
Cutlass models the timeline separately from the UI. Every edit is a structured command that applies deterministically and inverts cleanly. The same property that makes undo reliable is what makes the assistant's edits safe. It can only do what you could do by hand.
- core model
- edit commands
- engine
- FFmpeg I/O
- WGPU compositor
- Slint UI
Say the cut. Keep the control.
Tell the assistant what you want and a plain sentence becomes a timeline command, the same deterministic, undoable kind you run by hand. Preview the plan as a dry run first, and every prompt is a single undo. Bring your own model: any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, local or cloud.
| # | YOU SAY | THE ENGINE RUNS |
|---|---|---|
| 001 | “trim the intro” | TRIM IN +00:00:02:12 |
| 002 | “remove the pause before the reveal” | RIPPLE DELETE 00:01:04:08 – 00:01:06:21 |
| 003 | “cut this section” | SPLIT + DELETE RANGE (UNDOABLE) |
Still to come
- □ Color grading & LUTs
- □ Masks & chroma key
- □ Captions & transcript editing
- □ Text animations & stickers
Download it, or build it tonight.
Grab a build for macOS, Windows, or Linux (downloaded straight from here, no detour), or build from source with stable Rust 1.85+ and the FFmpeg dev libraries. Expect bugs and a project format that hasn't settled yet; it is an alpha, and we say so.
Download the latest →# or build from source: macOS, Windows, Linux
$ git clone github.com/1Mr-Newton/cutlass
$ cd cutlass
$ cargo run -p cutlass-uiIssues and pull requests welcome: github.com/1Mr-Newton/cutlass
REEL 05 / THE CALL SHEET
Be there when the next cut lands.
Leave an email and we'll write when an alpha build is worth installing, and when big new features ship. Nothing else, ever.