Cutlass

Cutlass is a free, open-source video editor with an AI assistant built in. Edit the normal way on a timeline — cut, trim, arrange, add effects and audio — or just tell the assistant what you want and watch it do the edit for you.

It's still alpha and moving fast, but it's a real editor now, not a toy.

What you can do

Edit a timeline

• Import video, audio, and images onto a multi-lane timeline.
• Cut, trim, split, move, duplicate, link/unlink, ripple-delete, multi-select.
• Change speed and reverse, crop and flip, move/scale/rotate, set opacity.
• Add styled text, solid colors, shapes, and bundled stickers (static or animated).
• Apply entrance/exit/combo look animations from the catalog.
• Pick a canvas shape (16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, 21:9) and a background color.
• Keyframe almost anything — animate transforms and effect settings over time.

Effects & transitions

• A GPU effect engine with a starter pack: blur, vignette, sharpen, pixelate, glitch, chromatic aberration, grain, glow, zoom-blur, mirror.
• Transitions between clips: crossfade, dip to black/white, wipes, slide, zoom, blur.
• Adjustment layers that affect everything beneath them.

Audio that doesn't need a separate app

• Volume envelopes and draggable fade handles.
• Change speed without the chipmunk effect — pitch stays put, ramps included.
• Auto-duck music under a voice track.
• One-click noise reduction.
• Beat detection you can snap your cuts to.

Preview & export

• Live GPU preview with scrubbing and real-time playback.
• Export to H.264/AAC MP4.

The AI assistant

Describe an edit in plain language and the assistant makes it on your timeline. It uses the same actions you would, so every change stays visible, undoable, and reviewable — nothing happens behind your back. It's optional; the editor works fine without it. Configure an OpenAI-compatible endpoint in ~/.cutlass/config.toml (see below); dry-run preview is on by default.

Install

Download a build from the releases page.

• macOS (Apple Silicon) — unzip and drag Cutlass.app to Applications. On first launch, right-click the app and choose Open (builds aren't notarized yet). Media decode/encode uses the OS's AVFoundation — nothing else to install.
• Windows / Linux — preview builds only for now: the editor UI runs, but these platforms' native media backends aren't implemented yet, so imported media won't play.

Setting up the AI assistant

Cutlass doesn't ship a model. Point it at any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — a local one like Ollama, or a cloud provider.

Create ~/.cutlass/config.toml:

[ai]
base_url = "http://localhost:11434/v1"   # e.g. Ollama
model = "qwen3:14b"
# api_key = "sk-..."                      # for cloud endpoints, or:
# api_key_env = "OPENAI_API_KEY"          # read the key from an env var

Your key stays in that file or your environment — it's never written into project files. Smaller local models work but tool-call less reliably; the assistant's dry-run mode lets you preview a plan before it touches anything.

Projects

Cutlass owns your projects, CapCut-style — there's no file to save by hand. Every edit auto-saves continuously, so a clean exit never loses work, and the launch screen lists your projects to reopen or delete. Rename a project inline from the title bar.

Use Open file… to import an external .cutlass into your projects, and Export to render an .mp4. Media is referenced from where it lives on disk, so importing a project from another machine may ask you to relink media.

Build from source

You need a recent stable Rust toolchain. Media decode/encode is platform-native (AVFoundation/VideoToolbox on Apple platforms), so there are no third-party media libraries to install on macOS.

Run the desktop editor:

cargo run -p cutlass-desktop
# or open straight into a file:
cargo run -p cutlass-desktop -- path/to/video.mp4

To build and test the whole workspace:

cargo build --workspace
cargo test --workspace

The iOS/macOS SwiftUI app lives in apps/cutlass-ios-macos (built with Xcode on top of the same engine through cutlass-mobile), and the Android test app in apps/cutlass-android.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, the project layout, and the commit/PR style. Each crate also has its own README under crates/, and packaging notes live in packaging/.

A lot of Cutlass is written with AI coding tools and then reviewed by maintainers. Contributions are welcome on the same footing whether they come from a person or an assistant, as long as they're solid and meet the bar.

License

Dual-licensed under either of Apache-2.0 or MIT, at your option.

Media decode/encode goes through the operating system's frameworks (AVFoundation/VideoToolbox on Apple platforms), so builds bundle no third-party media libraries.