strivo

Self-hosted live-stream PVR with a web UI. Monitor channels across Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon — automatically record when they go live, play back in the browser, and optionally transcribe recordings with Whisper.

TUI removed. The original ratatui-based TUI was retired; the web UI is the only supported frontend. See CHANGELOG.md for the inventory.

Status: alpha. The configuration format, daemon IPC protocol, and plugin ABI are all unstable and will keep changing until 0.5.0. Expect to re-edit config.toml across releases. See ROADMAP.md for the stability timeline and CHANGELOG.md for migration notes.

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What it does

strivo runs a background daemon and serves a web UI on localhost:8181. The daemon watches the channels you tell it to; when one goes live, it records the broadcast through ffmpeg (resolving the playable URL via streamlink or yt-dlp) and notifies you. You browse recordings, play them back in the browser, run optional plugins (Whisper transcription, gallery archiver), and search across your archive — all from the SPA.

strivo with no arguments starts the daemon and the webui in one process. For systemd setups, strivo daemon runs the daemon alone and strivo serve runs the webui alone; both talk over the same Unix socket the daemon used to share with the legacy TUI.

Platform support

Platform	Auth	Monitoring	Recording	Notes
Twitch	OAuth device flow	Followed-channel polling	ffmpeg + streamlink	Sub-only streams via OAuth token passthrough
YouTube	OAuth + Data API v3	Live-broadcast detection	ffmpeg + yt-dlp	Cookie-based auth for members-only streams
Patreon	Membership API	Post / stream detection	yt-dlp	Subscription-tier extraction

Operating systems

OS	Web UI	Daemon	Status
Linux (x86_64)	✅	✅	Primary target; CI-gated
macOS (aarch64 / x86_64)	✅	✅	Builds and runs; manual testing pre-release
Windows	❌	❌	Daemon IPC uses Unix sockets — Windows named-pipe transport is on the roadmap

Features

Core

• Multi-platform channel monitoring with configurable poll intervals
• Automatic recording when channels go live (per-channel toggle)
• Live playback through mpv without downloading first
• Cron-based recording schedules
• Desktop notifications on go-live events
• Configurable filename templates ({channel}_{date}_{title}.mkv)
• Retry with exponential backoff on failed recordings

TUI

• Sidebar with channel list, auto-record toggles, platform indicators
• Channel detail view with stream metadata and recent recordings
• Recording browser — sortable, filterable, with size and duration
• Settings panel — edit config without leaving the TUI
• Live log viewer
• First-run setup flow for platform credentials in the web UI
• Multiple color themes

Daemon mode

• Background service via Unix-socket IPC
• One or more TUI clients can attach to a running daemon
• strivo daemon install writes a systemd user unit

Plugins

• Crunchr — Voxtral via OpenRouter (default, $0.003/min) / Mistral direct (diarization) / WhisperX local (self-hosted GPU diarization) / self-hosted Voxtral / Whisper CLI transcription, Speaker Editor TUI modal, SRT/VTT export with mkvmerge soft-sub embedding, tandem-mode auto-trigger, SQLite storage
• Archiver — organizes recordings by channel, renders gallery views

First-party plugins live in-tree under crates/strivo-plugins/ — the former separate strivo-plugins repo was folded into the workspace. See docs/PLUGIN-MANIFEST.md for ABI notes and the plugin loader contract.

Tech stack

• Language: Rust 1.75+
• Web UI: SPA served from strivo-web (axum + a vanilla-JS single-file SPA)
• Recording: ffmpeg, streamlink, yt-dlp
• Playback: mpv
• Transcription: Voxtral via OpenRouter (default), Mistral API (with diarization), WhisperX + pyannote (self-hosted GPU diarization, two-stage VRAM unload for 8 GB cards), self-hosted Voxtral (vLLM / RunPod), Whisper CLI
• Subtitling: VTT + SRT sidecars, optional mkvmerge soft-sub mux back into the recording
• Storage: SQLite (bundled via rusqlite) for transcripts and journal
• IPC: Unix domain sockets (daemon / client)
• Config & secrets: TOML on disk, OS keyring for credentials

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.75+ to build from source
• ffmpeg — recording
• mpv — playback
• streamlink — Twitch stream resolution
• yt-dlp — YouTube / Patreon stream resolution

Arch Linux (AUR)

paru -S strivo      # or: yay -S strivo
strivo doctor       # verify ffmpeg / mpv / streamlink / yt-dlp are installed
strivo              # starts daemon + webui on http://127.0.0.1:8181

From source

git clone https://github.com/Chorosyne/strivo.git
cd strivo
cargo build --release

Dev install (current checkout → ~/.local/bin/strivo)

For hacking on a clone: build the latest from the working tree and drop strivo on your PATH, with every first-party plugin enabled in a generated default config.

scripts/install-dev.sh                # release build
scripts/install-dev.sh --debug        # faster iteration build
scripts/install-dev.sh --reconfigure  # rewrite the managed plugin block
scripts/install-dev.sh --uninstall    # remove installed bits (config kept)

The script:

• builds strivo-bin, copies the binary to ~/.local/bin/strivo,
• ships the whisperx_diarize.py orchestrator next to it (auto-discovered by the whisperx-local backend),
• generates bash/zsh/fish completions and a manpage into ~/.local/share/strivo/,
• writes ~/.config/strivo/config.toml enabling crunchr + archiver on first run only (subsequent runs leave your edits alone unless you pass --reconfigure, which refreshes only the marker-bracketed block).

Override paths with STRIVO_BIN_DIR, STRIVO_SHARE_DIR, STRIVO_CONFIG_DIR.

(The previous git submodule update --init step is no longer needed — the first-party plugins live in crates/strivo-plugins/ in this repo.)

The binary lands at target/release/strivo. Copy it onto your PATH.

Platform credentials

Complete the web UI's setup flow on first launch, or configure manually:

Platform	How to get credentials
Twitch	Create an app at dev.twitch.tv/console — need client_id and client_secret
YouTube	Create OAuth credentials at the Google Cloud Console — need client_id and client_secret
Patreon	Uses the membership API via browser cookies

Credentials are stored in your OS keyring (macOS Keychain, GNOME Keyring / Secret Service, Windows Credential Manager).

Usage

TUI

strivo

Arrow keys + Enter to navigate. The sidebar shows monitored channels with live-status indicators. a toggles auto-record on a channel; / opens search.

Daemon

strivo daemon start     # start the background service
strivo daemon stop      # stop it
strivo daemon status    # report whether it is running
strivo daemon install   # write a systemd user unit

When the daemon is running, strivo launches as a client that connects to the Unix socket. See docs/DAEMON.md for socket paths, logging, and lifecycle details.

CLI

strivo config list              # show all settings
strivo config get <key>         # read a value
strivo config set <key> <val>   # write a value
strivo config path              # print the config file location
strivo config reset             # restore defaults (keeps credentials)

strivo log tail [-l 100]        # live-tail the log
strivo log path                 # print the log file location
strivo log clear                # wipe the log

Flags

Flag	Description
-c, --config <path>	Custom config file
-l, --log-level <level>	trace, debug, info, warn, error

RUST_LOG is also honoured and overrides -l when set.

Configuration

Config lives at ~/.config/strivo/config.toml (XDG-compliant — see strivo config path for the resolved location on your system). A fully annotated reference is checked in at config.toml.example; a minimal working starting point looks like:

recording_dir = "/home/you/Videos/strivo"
poll_interval_secs = 60

[twitch]
client_id = "..."
client_secret = "..."

[youtube]
client_id = "..."
client_secret = "..."
cookies_path = "/path/to/cookies.txt"   # optional, for members-only streams

[recording]
transcode = false
filename_template = "{channel}_{date}_{title}.mkv"

[[auto_record_channels]]
platform = "twitch"
channel_id = "12345"
channel_name = "streamer_name"

[[schedules]]
platform = "twitch"
channel_id = "12345"
cron = "0 20 * * 1-5"   # weekdays at 8pm

Architecture

Twitch / YouTube / Patreon APIs
              │
              ▼
   ┌─────────────────────────┐
   │        Monitor          │
   │  polling, go-live detect│
   └────────┬────────────────┘
            │
       ┌────▼────┐    ┌──────────┐
       │Recorder │───▶│  Plugin  │
       │ ffmpeg  │    │ Crunchr  │
       │ yt-dlp  │    │ Archiver │
       └────┬────┘    └──────────┘
            │
       ┌────▼────┐    ┌──────────┐
       │Playback │    │ Web UI   │
       │  mpv    │◀──▶│ (SPA)    │
       └─────────┘    └──────────┘

strivo/                        cargo workspace root
├── src/                       strivo-core (library crate)
│   ├── platform/              Trait-based abstraction (Twitch, YouTube, Patreon)
│   ├── monitor/               Channel polling, go-live detection
│   ├── recording/             Job lifecycle, ffmpeg / yt-dlp process management
│   ├── stream/                URL resolution via streamlink / yt-dlp
│   ├── playback/              mpv controller
│   ├── plugin/                Plugin trait, registry, lifecycle
│   ├── intents/               Recording-intent translators (Start, DownloadVod)
│   ├── events.rs              DaemonEvent — IPC broadcast envelope
│   ├── daemon.rs              Background service, Unix-socket listener
│   ├── ipc.rs                 Client-server protocol
│   └── config/                TOML config, OS-keyring integration
├── crates/strivo-bin/         Binary crate (CLI, main.rs)
└── crates/strivo-plugins/     First-party plugins (Crunchr, Archiver,
                               Insights, Editor, Viewguard)

The dependency graph is strictly one-way: strivo-core ← strivo-plugins ← strivo-bin. The core crate has no awareness of concrete plugins; the binary pulls both together.

Design rationale

Decision	Reasoning
Platform trait	Adding a new service means implementing one trait — auth, polling, and recording are decoupled from platform specifics
Unix-socket IPC	Zero-overhead daemon / client split; the TUI is just another client and headless recording works standalone
TUI-first	Terminal-native workflow stays fast, composable, and SSH-friendly. A complementary *arr-style web UI (strivo serve) is on the feat/webui branch — it talks to the same daemon over the existing socket
Plugin event bus	Transcription and archival react to recording events without coupling to the recording pipeline
OS keyring	Credentials never touch disk as plaintext — uses platform-native secret storage

Known limitations (0.3.0 alpha)

• Daemon mode is Unix-only. Linux and macOS work; Windows users can run the TUI against locally resolved streams but cannot attach to a daemon until the named-pipe transport lands.
• In-flight recordings are not durable across daemon crashes. A persisted journal exists for status replay but does not yet recover an in-flight ffmpeg process; the durability work is tracked in M1 / 0.4.0.
• Transcription jobs cannot be cancelled or retried after timeout — a single failure currently terminates the job.
• Plugins require same-toolchain compilation against the exact strivo build that loads them. Third-party plugins are not recommended for end users in alpha; see docs/PLUGIN-MANIFEST.md.

Documentation

• docs/FIRST-RUN.md — log paths, common failure modes
• docs/DAEMON.md — daemon lifecycle, systemd integration, socket location
• docs/PLUGIN-MANIFEST.md — plugin trait, ABI caveats
• docs/PLUGIN-TEMPLATE.md — minimal plugin skeleton
• docs/SETTINGS-COVERAGE.md — which config fields are surfaced in the settings UI

Contributing

Bug reports and small fixes are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the local-build flow and project conventions. Security issues should be reported privately via SECURITY.md, not as public issues.

Roadmap

Roadmap, milestones, and explicit deferrals live in ROADMAP.md.

License

MIT

Credits

The web UI's topbar icons are vendored from EliverLara/candy-icons (GPL-3.0) by Eliver Lara — see crates/strivo-web/assets/icons/candy/ for the upstream LICENSE and per-icon attribution.