Your footage, your machine

"Local-first" gets used loosely, so here is exactly what it means in Cutgraph Studio: what stays on your computer, the short list of things that can reach the network, and how to avoid each one.

What stays on your machine

Everything you make:

• Media: your footage, images, audio, music and sound effects.
• Transcripts: every word and its timing.
• Projects: scenes, cuts, cues, shots and the Workspace library.
• Exports and logs.

All of it lives in a local state folder on your computer. Studio is a small web app that serves its interface to your own browser, and it only accepts connections from your own machine. It doesn't listen on your network, and there's no hosted version of it anywhere.

There's no account to create, and the app has no telemetry, no analytics and no crash reporting. We don't know you're using it unless you tell us.

What can reach the network

There are four things, and each one only happens when you use it.

1. The co-pilot (optional)

When you ask the co-pilot for an edit, Studio sends your request plus the relevant transcript or document text to Anthropic, using your own API key. It never sends raw video or audio. Anthropic bills you directly; nothing passes through us.

If you never add a key, nothing is sent. The editor works fully without it.

One thing to know: transcript text goes into the prompt, so a transcript could in principle try to steer the model (prompt injection). That's one reason the co-pilot can only propose. Nothing changes until you accept.

2. First-run model downloads

Local transcription uses WhisperX. The first time you transcribe, it downloads the speech model (about 3.1 GB) and an alignment model (about 380 MB). Your audio is never part of that traffic. Hugging Face can still check its cache on later runs; to stop that too, provision the pinned cache and set Hugging Face offline mode.

To avoid it, don't install the optional transcription pack. You can still edit from a script you paste in.

3. Stock search (optional)

The media drawer can search Pexels and Pixabay for B-roll. That sends your search terms to those services, and only works with your own free API keys. Imported clips keep their attribution.

To avoid it, don't add the keys, and use your own library.

4. Installing dependencies

Installing from source downloads Python and Node packages, as any source install does. The Python dependencies are hash-locked, so you get exactly the versions we tested.

What we can't promise yet

Being local means your files are only as safe as your machine. Two notes from our security model:

• Media parsing isn't sandboxed. ffmpeg and friends process whatever you import. Use media you trust.
• Character packs are trusted local code. Only install packs you'd be happy to run.

The full details will accompany the source preview. Source preview coming soon.

Why we bothered

Because a lot of the footage worth editing is footage you can't upload: client calls, unreleased products, your kids. And because word-level transcription on a consumer GPU is now quick enough that a cloud round trip buys you very little for this job.

If you find something in Cutgraph that reaches the network and isn't on this list, that's a bug. Source preview coming soon, or email hello@cutgraph.app.

FAQ

Does Cutgraph Studio upload my video? No. Media, transcripts, projects, exports and logs stay in a local state folder, and the app only accepts connections from your own machine.

What does the co-pilot send to Anthropic? When you use the optional co-pilot, your prompt and the relevant transcript or document text go to Anthropic with your own API key. Raw video and audio are never sent. If you never add a key, nothing is sent.

Does Cutgraph Studio have telemetry? No. The app has no telemetry, analytics or crash reporting.