Open Source · MIT · macOS · 100% Offline · On-Device AI
shelfseer
**Own the books — then own the librarian.**
Not a chatbot wired to someone's cloud — a librarian that lives on your Mac. shelfseer points a small, on-device language model at a folder of documents you own (notes, manuscripts, the EPUBs you bound with reepub) and answers your questions with passages from your own texts, cited and grounded. No API keys, no subscription, no internet. Your most private words never leave the machine.
How it works
1.
Point it at your library
Pick a folder of text, Markdown, or EPUB files you own. shelfseer reads them on-device, splits them into passages, and builds a private index with Apple's on-device embeddings — nothing is uploaded.
2.
Ask in your own words
Type a question. shelfseer retrieves the most relevant passages from your own library — the intelligence is in the retrieval, so a small local model is enough.
3.
Get a grounded answer
An on-device language model (Apple Foundation Models) answers using only those passages, cited back to your sources — and falls back to an extractive answer when Apple Intelligence isn't available. Never a word leaves your Mac.
What's inside
You own it, not rent it
Cloud AI is a meter running on someone else's server — revocable, repriced, your private text routed through their pipes. shelfseer is the librarian on your own shelf: offline, free, yours. No one can switch it off.
Privacy that's structural
Journals, letters, manuscripts — your most private text never leaves the machine. There is no pipe to the outside world; privacy here is the architecture, not a promise.
On-device intelligence
Apple's on-device embeddings find the right passages; Apple Foundation Models writes the answer — all on your Mac, with no multi-gigabyte model download, no account, and no network.
The companion to reepub
reepub binds the paper you own into clean EPUBs; shelfseer lets you talk to them. First you own the books — then you own the librarian.
Your library, your librarian
Free and open source — yet its headline is what no cloud can sell you: ownership, privacy, permanence. shelfseer is for querying documents you own or have the right to read, answered entirely on your own Mac. Build it from source with the Xcode Command Line Tools — no full Xcode, no cloud, no cost.