Today News

Show HN: Wisp – open-source private desktop AI overlay with MCP support

Wisp icon

Wisp

 

Many tasks are better handled with AI assistance than complete delegation. Wisp makes that collaboration faster, more user-friendly, and more customizable as an open-source co-working platform.

इससे जुड़ी जानकारी

Wisp gives you hotkey-driven AI that can read your selection, clipboard, app, browser, documents, or screen snip while you stay where you are. Press a hotkey, choose an action, and stream the answer into a small overlay or at your input cursor. It is completely open-source, cross-platform, extensible, permissively licensed, and 100% Python, so it stays easy to tinker with: the kind of openness that even billion-dollar products like Microsoft Copilot still do not offer.

Platform
Python
Local first
License

Languages: English | 简体中文 | 繁體中文 | Français | Español

Website: Wisp Docs

Quick start | What it does | Demos | Configuration | Free APIs | Privacy

Wisp Ctrl+Q demo

Overlay query: Press a hotkey, choose an action, and get a streamed answer without leaving the app you are already using.


Known Issues

 

Known issues

What Wisp Does

 

Wisp is for the moments when opening a chat app would break your flow.

Highlight text, press the general hotkey, hit one action key, and Wisp asks your configured model with only the context sources you enabled. Replies stream into a compact bubble next to the floating icon. Configure TTS for read-aloud, or enable auto-speak replies if you want answers spoken as they arrive.

Without WispWith Wisp
Copy text into a chat app, explain the context, wait, then paste the answer backPress a hotkey and ask from the app you are already using
Retyping the instructions for recurring tasks every timeSave reusable actions with the context sources you want
Manually describe a browser page, document, or screenshotCapture selection, clipboard, documents, browser pages, and screen snips
Turning every thought into a typed promptHold a voice hotkey, speak, and send the transcribed request
Wearing yourself out reading wall after wall of textStream replies in the overlay or listen with TTS
Give an agent broad instructions and hope it touches the right filesRun scoped agent tasks with artifacts, review, and logs
Trust a closed assistant platform with your prompts, context, and memoryKeep data on your machine and send only the information and requests you choose to your model provider

Highlights

 

  • Overlay first – a floating icon, action picker, and reply bubble stay on top without taking over your desktop.
  • Full chat window – click the floating icon to open a persistent chat that remembers past conversations, keeps the context you captured in the overlay, and can expand a quick overlay reply into a longer back-and-forth.
  • Privacy by default – Wisp has no hosted storage layer; data stays on your machine unless you send it to your chosen model, and privacy mode can warn or redact before sensitive context leaves.
  • Highly customizable – every hotkey, action key, prompt, context source, paste-back behavior, model route, voice setting, and bubble dimension can be changed.
  • Approachable GUI – Settings, setup checks, privacy reports, memory tools, and model warnings explain what is happening without requiring you to read the code.
  • Context capture – Wisp can read selected text, clipboard text, focused UI, open documents, browser content, recent files, and optional screenshots, so it does not have to rely on screen grabs alone.
  • Voice in and out – local STT via faster-whisper, plus on-device neural TTS (Kokoro, and GPT-SoVITS voice cloning) or cloud/compatible voices (Cartesia, ElevenLabs, OpenAI, any OpenAI-compatible server), with TTS and auto-spoken replies off by default.
  • Vision snips – draw a region with Ctrl+Alt+Q and send the screenshot to a vision model.
  • Rewrite and paste – use the rewrite hotkey to rewrite selected text with captured context and paste the result back into the active field.
  • Bring your own provider – Groq, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Mistral, XAI, Together, Cerebras, Z.AI / GLM, NVIDIA, SambaNova, GitHub Models, Hugging Face, Chutes, Vercel, Fireworks, Cohere, AI21, Nebius, custom OpenAI-compatible servers, GitHub Copilot, and more.
  • Local memory – optional short-term and long-term memory are stored locally, with a viewer for editing or deleting facts.
  • Addons and MCP – extend Wisp with hooks, tray actions, settings, model-callable tools, actions, and hotkeys; a bundled MCP bridge turns any Model Context Protocol server into tools the model can call.
  • Agent tasks – a sandboxed task framework exists for longer jobs that need decomposition, review, and artifacts.

Demos

 

Wisp Ctrl+Alt+Q screen snip demo

Vision snip: The snip flow is for cases where visual context matters. Ctrl+Alt+Q lets you draw a region, send just that crop to a vision model, and keep the answer in the overlay instead of switching app…

     
                    WhatsApp Channel                             Join Now            
   
                    Telegram Channel                             Join Now            
   
                    Instagram follow us                             Join Now