A cross-platform invisible teleprompter that's hidden from screen sharing.
Open-source · Privacy-first · macOS + Windows

  

Steadi displays your script near the webcam in an always-on-top overlay that is completely invisible during screen sharing on Zoom, Teams, Meet, and OBS. Write in markdown, present with auto-scroll, and maintain natural eye contact, all without your audience ever seeing the prompter or needing to worry about any of your data leaving your machine.

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Highlights

• Invisible overlay: excluded from screen capture at the OS level (NSWindow.sharingType on macOS, SetWindowDisplayAffinity on Windows). Your audience sees nothing.
• Markdown-native editor: distraction-free CodeMirror editor with a toggleable rendered preview panel. Scripts persist as .md files on disk.
• Auto-scroll with 3 speed presets: Slow (30 px/s), Medium (52 px/s), Fast (82 px/s). Frame-rate-independent scroll engine works consistently on 60 Hz and 120 Hz displays.
• Global hotkeys: control playback from any app. Play/pause, cycle speed, rewind, scroll, and toggle visibility all work system-wide.
• Full customization: resize, reposition, adjust font size (12-64 px), and change opacity (30-100%) on the fly. All settings persist across sessions.
• Multi-monitor support: cycle the overlay between connected displays with one click.
• File management: folders and scripts with drag-and-drop reordering and cross-folder moves.
• 100% on-device: zero network calls, zero telemetry, zero accounts. The source code proves it.

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Install

Homebrew (macOS, recommended)

brew tap siddharth-khattar/steadi
brew install --cask steadi

Shell script (macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Siddharth-Khattar/Steadi/main/install.sh | sh

Pin a specific version:

STEADI_VERSION=v0.0.4 curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Siddharth-Khattar/Steadi/main/install.sh | sh

Manual download (Windows)

Grab the latest Setup EXE (Windows) or DMG (macOS) from the Releases page.

macOS note: builds are currently unsigned. If you download the DMG directly, strip the quarantine attribute after installing:

xattr -cr /Applications/Steadi.app

Recommended: The Homebrew cask and shell script handle this automatically.

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Quick Start

1. Create a script: click the + button in the sidebar to add a folder and script. Write your content in the markdown editor.
2. Preview: toggle the rendered preview panel from the top bar to see how your script will look in the overlay.
3. Start presenting: click Start in the top bar. A 3-2-1 countdown plays, then the overlay begins auto-scrolling your script. The editor hides to get out of the way.
4. Control playback: use global shortcuts from any app (see table below), click the overlay to play/pause, or press ? on the overlay to see all shortcuts.
5. Return to editing: press Escape on the overlay, or click the floating pencil button that appears when the editor is hidden.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Global (work from any app)

Action	macOS	Windows
Toggle overlay	Cmd+Shift+F	Ctrl+Shift+F
Play / Pause	Cmd+Shift+Space	Ctrl+Shift+Space
Cycle speed	Cmd+Shift+S	Ctrl+Shift+S
Rewind	Cmd+Shift+R	Ctrl+Shift+R
Scroll up	Cmd+Shift+W	Ctrl+Shift+W
Scroll down	Cmd+Shift+X	Ctrl+Shift+X

Overlay-local (when overlay is focused/clicked)

Action	Shortcut
Play / Pause	Space
Stop & return to editor	Escape
Increase font size	Cmd/Ctrl + +
Decrease font size	Cmd/Ctrl + -
Increase opacity	+
Decrease opacity	-
Show all shortcuts	?

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Architecture

Steadi is a Tauri 2 app with a Rust backend and a React + TypeScript frontend. It runs three separate windows, each with its own Vite entry point and a scoped Tauri capability file (principle of least privilege).

Window Model

graph LR
    subgraph Tauri Runtime
        R[Rust Backend]
    end

    subgraph Windows
        M[Main Window<br/>Editor + Sidebar + TopBar]
        O[Overlay Window<br/>Teleprompter]
        F[Editor FAB<br/>Restore Button]
    end

    M -- "invoke()" --> R
    R -- "emit_to(main)" --> M
    R -- "emit_to(overlay)" --> O
    M -- "emit_to(overlay)" --> O
    R -- "show / hide" --> F

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Window	Description
Main	Script editor, file tree, and the "Start" trigger. Standard decorated window (1200x800 default).
Overlay	Transparent, frameless, always-on-top, content-protected teleprompter. Created at startup, toggled with Cmd+Shift+F.
Editor FAB	56x56 floating button (bottom-right). Hidden by default, shown during teleprompter sessions so the user can restore the editor.

Data Flow

flowchart TD
    FS["Filesystem<br/>.md script files"] <-->|read / write| ZS["Zustand Stores<br/>(scriptStore, uiStore, teleprompterStore)"]
    TS["Tauri Store Plugin<br/>JSON persistence"] <-->|persist middleware| ZS
    ZS --> CM["CodeMirror Editor"]
    ZS --> SB["Sidebar File Tree"]
    CM -->|auto-save 1s debounce| FS

    ZS -->|script content via event| OV["Overlay Renderer<br/>(react-markdown)"]
    OV --> AS["Auto-Scroll Engine<br/>(rAF + time-delta)"]

    GS["Global Shortcuts<br/>(Rust plugin)"] -->|events| OV

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Screen-Capture Exclusion (platform-specific)

The overlay is invisible during screen sharing through native OS APIs:

• macOS: NSWindow.sharingType = .none via objc2-app-kit. Additionally uses CALayer for bottom-only rounded corners (radius 16).
• Windows: SetWindowDisplayAffinity(WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE) via the Windows API.

Both approaches operate at the compositor level, making the window invisible to all screen capture tools (Zoom, Teams, Meet, OBS, screenshots).

Key Technical Details

• Scroll engine: uses requestAnimationFrame with time-delta calculations, ensuring consistent speed regardless of display refresh rate (60 Hz vs 120 Hz). Scroll position is tracked in a ref (not React state) to avoid 60+ re-renders per second.
• Multi-page Vite build: each window has its own index.html entry point under src/, configured via rollupOptions.input. This keeps each window's bundle minimal.
• Capability scoping: each window gets only the Tauri permissions it needs (defined in src-tauri/capabilities/). The overlay cannot access the filesystem; the main window cannot manipulate the overlay directly.
• macOS private API: enabled via macOSPrivateApi: true in tauri.conf.json and the corresponding Cargo feature flag, required for transparent + content-protected windows.

For full development workflow details (CI pipeline, release process, code signing), see the Developer Guide.

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Tauri 2
Frontend	React 19 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS 4
Editor	CodeMirror 6
State	Zustand 5 (persisted via Tauri Store plugin)
Backend	Rust · objc2 crates for native macOS APIs
Build	Vite 6 (multi-page: main, overlay, editor-fab)
Drag & Drop	@dnd-kit (sortable + cross-folder)
Markdown	react-markdown + remark-gfm

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Local Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js (LTS) and npm
• Rust (stable) via rustup
• Tauri v2 prerequisites: see the official guide for your platform (Xcode CLT on macOS, Visual Studio Build Tools on Windows)

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Siddharth-Khattar/Steadi.git
cd Steadi
npm install

Run

npm run tauri dev

This launches Vite (frontend) and the Rust backend together. Changes to src/ hot-reload instantly; changes to src-tauri/src/ trigger a Rust recompile.

Quality checks

Run the full suite before pushing (mirrors CI):

npm run check:all

Command	What it checks
npm run typecheck	TypeScript (tsc -b)
npm run lint	ESLint
npm run clippy	Rust linting (zero-warnings policy)
npm run fmt:rust	Rust formatting

See the Developer Guide for the full CI pipeline, release process, and code signing setup.

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Project Structure

Steadi/
├── src/                      # Frontend (React + TypeScript)
│   ├── main/                 # Main editor window entry point
│   ├── overlay/              # Overlay teleprompter window entry point
│   │   ├── components/       #   Overlay UI (TeleprompterView, Countdown, ProgressBar...)
│   │   ├── hooks/            #   Auto-scroll, controls, geometry, events
│   │   └── utils/            #   Monitor cycling, snap positioning
│   ├── editor-fab/           # Floating restore button window entry point
│   ├── components/           # Shared UI components (editor, sidebar, toolbar)
│   ├── stores/               # Zustand stores (script, teleprompter, ui)
│   ├── persistence/          # File I/O and Tauri Store helpers
│   └── styles/               # Global CSS
├── src-tauri/                # Rust backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── lib.rs            # App setup, plugins, global shortcuts
│   │   ├── overlay.rs        # Overlay window creation & native styling
│   │   ├── editor_fab.rs     # FAB window creation
│   │   └── commands.rs       # IPC command handlers
│   ├── capabilities/         # Per-window Tauri permission scopes
│   └── tauri.conf.json       # Tauri configuration
├── DOCS/                     # Developer guide, PRD, brand assets
└── install.sh                # macOS quarantine-free installer

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Roadmap

Steadi is under active development. Here's what's coming next:

• Overlay UI polish: refine the overlay appearance and behaviour across different screen sizes, resolutions, and multi-monitor setups
• Settings page: a dedicated settings panel with full customization of controls, shortcuts, scroll behaviour, and appearance preferences
• Voice-synced scrolling (macOS): word-level script tracking via SFSpeechRecognizer so the overlay scrolls in sync with your voice
• Voice-synced scrolling (Windows): cadence-based scrolling via Silero VAD for voice-activity-driven scroll speed
• Windows platform validation: full testing and validation of overlay invisibility on Windows

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Feedback & Contact

Have a feature request, bug report, or just want to say hi? Reach out at siddharth@khattar.dev.

You can also open an issue on GitHub.

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License

MIT. Free to use, modify, and distribute.