brood

I built Brood because I kept spending more time on prompt roulette than visual iteration. Quick demo: https://youtu.be/yKy1BtNY9s4 Install (DMG): https://github.com/kevinshowkat/brood/releases Brood is a macOS desktop app where references are first-class. Import 1-3 images and run on-canvas actions like recast, combine, swap DNA, and bridge. Runs are reproducible: artifacts + events.jsonl are written locally. Current limits: macOS only, API keys required. Would love blunt feedback on where this is faster/slower than your current workflow.

Brood is a promptless, reference-first AI visual canvas for developers. Instead of wiring node graphs or writing long prompts, you import 1–3 reference images and run visual “abilities” directly on canvas. Brood keeps the workflow image-first and model/provider-flexible. What it does now: - Single-image actions: diagnose, recast, variations, background edits, crop - Two-image actions: combine, swap DNA, bridge, argue - Ambient intent discovery: background intent classification while editing, with subtle visual nudges - Reproducible runs: artifacts + events written to disk for traceability Why I built it: I wanted a faster “think with images” loop for product/creative workflows without heavy graph setup, while still keeping reproducibility and provider routing first-class. Tech: - macOS desktop app (Tauri) - Python engine +

Demo: https://streamable.com/fcy9sg Brood is a macOS desktop app for iterating on visual ideas where the canvas image is the primary state and text is optional. The UI is an RTS-style tool palette: you pick an operation and apply it to regions of the canvas. Under the hood, Brood routes each step to an image model/tool (Gemini, OpenAI, Flux) and runs a lightweight policy step that looks at the current canvas and chooses the next operation (eg background removal, recast/style shift, object replace) based on what it infers youre trying to do. This started as an experiment inspired by Karpathys "the tokenizer must go" / image-input-first argument (https://x.com/karpathy/status/1980397031542989305 ). Feedback I want: Does the RTS-style palette speed up iteration or add distraction? Which 2-3 operations should be next?