Getting Started

Clone, build, ship a thumbnail.

From git clone to a finished thumbnail in about 10 minutes. No subscription. No account. No telemetry.

Requirements

What you'll need.

macOS
26.0 +
Tahoe / Liquid Glass era
Hardware
Apple Silicon
M1 or newer · 16 GB RAM rec.
Xcode
17.0 +
Free from the App Store
xcodegen
brew install xcodegen
Generates the .xcodeproj from project.yml

On Intel? Tiramisu builds on Intel macOS but Apple Silicon-specific features (Core ML, on-device generative fill) won't run. Stick with cloud Replicate for now.

01

Clone the repo.

It's open source under AGPL-3.0. Star the repo while you're there — that's the easiest way to support the project.

# Either via SSH
git clone git@github.com:hanley-tech/tiramisu.git
# …or HTTPS
git clone https://github.com/hanley-tech/tiramisu.git
cd tiramisu
02

Generate the Xcode project.

The repo doesn't ship a checked-in .xcodeproj — it's regenerated from project.yml via xcodegen. Install xcodegen if you don't already have it.

brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate

Why xcodegen? Keeping the Xcode project as a YAML file means clean diffs in PRs and zero merge conflicts on the binary .xcodeproj blob.

03

Build & run.

Open the freshly-generated project in Xcode. The active scheme should be Tiramisu by default. Hit ⌘R.

open Tiramisu.xcodeproj
# Cmd+R in Xcode → app launches

Or build & run from the command line:

xcodebuild -project Tiramisu.xcodeproj -scheme Tiramisu build
open ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Tiramisu-*/Build/Products/Debug/Tiramisu.app
04

Pick your AI backend.

Tiramisu supports four generative-fill backends. Pick whichever matches your machine + privacy stance. Set the active one in Settings → Generative Fill.

  • Local FLUX-Fill — best quality, fully on-device. Requires mflux installed (uv tool install mflux).
  • Replicate — cloud, paid, fastest first run. Drop in your API key.
05

Ship a thumbnail.

The shortest possible path from blank canvas to a posted thumbnail:

  1. ⌘N — pick a YouTube 1280×720 template.
  2. Drag a webcam screenshot in. The Background Remover takes the cutout in < 1 sec.
  3. Press T, type your headline. Cmd+T to free-transform; size it big.
  4. In the Effects tab → Glow + a small Drop Shadow on the headline.
  5. ⌘E to export PNG. Cross-post via the Creators panel if you've connected social accounts.

Or, when the natural-language intent bar lands, skip steps 2–4 entirely: type "make a clickable thumbnail with a shocked face and the title GIANT WIN" at the bottom of the canvas.

Contributing

Run the code? Fix something.

Tiramisu is open source for real — every PR is welcome. Read these before opening one.

  • CONTRIBUTING.md — how PRs are reviewed, code style, branch conventions.
  • CLAUDE.md — agent / contributor onboarding entry point. Read first.
  • CLAUDE.md — repo conventions, build rules.
  • ControlServer API — debug HTTP server for driving the app from scripts / agents (Debug builds only).
  • GitHub Issues — known bugs, feature requests, "good first issue" labels.

Stuck?

Open an issue.

No setup support email — every problem becomes a public GitHub issue, so the next person hits a fixed bug instead of the same one twice.

Open one →