01
Talk through your work
Ask by voice or text. Local transcription and spoken replies let you keep the conversation close to what you are doing.
Open source from Retvest
Sidekick
A little help for the work on your screen.
Talk to your desktop assistant, share what you are looking at, and take the next step. Run models locally or connect your own provider.
GPL-3.0 · Development preview · No Sidekick subscription required
Your screen. Your question.Example workflow
Share
Choose the screen or file you want help with.
Ask
“Explain this and walk me through it.”
Continue
Review the answer, follow a lesson, or approve an action.
Help that stays close to the task
02
Bring the context
Share a screen, image or document. Ask for an explanation, draw on a capture, or work through a guided lesson.
03
Make it your sidekick
Create personal assistants with instructions and memory. Add skills, queue tasks and schedule routines.
Local by default. Open to inspect.
Sidekick uses Ollama for local reasoning, Whisper for transcription, Kokoro for speech and Tesseract for screen text. Models and runtimes need an initial download. Cloud model providers and connected accounts are optional and contact their own services when used.
Chats and settings live on your computer. Sidekick has no telemetry or hosted backend. Review its source, build it yourself, and contribute under the GPL-3.0 licence.
Read how Sidekick handles your dataWhere the preview stands
- Source and build instructions are available on GitHub.
- Apple Silicon Mac is the initial testing focus.
- Windows runtime testing and signed installers are still pending.
- Real microphone, external app and account workflows need further acceptance testing.
Optional paid setup and support
Want a hand getting started?
Tell us about your Mac and the workflow you want help with. We can discuss installation, choosing a local model and a first useful task. Availability, compatibility, scope and price are agreed before booking.
Enquire about Sidekick setupAn enquiry creates no payment obligation. Building and using the GPL-licensed source remains free of Sidekick subscription charges. Please do not email passwords, API keys or private documents.