RustScribe

CLI to turn YouTube, Twitter/X or local media into timestamped, speaker‑labelled transcripts in one command. Runs on Rust and AWS Transcribe (⚠️ AWS usage fees apply after the free tier).

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🌟 What is RustScribe?

RustScribe is a powerful command-line tool that automatically transcribes audio content from various sources into accurate, timestamped text. Whether you're a researcher analyzing interviews, a content creator generating subtitles, or a developer building accessibility features, RustScribe streamlines the transcription process into a single command.

🎯 The Problem It Solves

Manual transcription is tedious and time-consuming. Existing solutions are often:

• Platform-locked (YouTube-only, etc.)
• Expensive for regular use
• Manual (upload files, wait, download)
• Inaccurate without proper timestamps or speaker detection

💡 The RustScribe Solution

1. Universal Input: Works with YouTube videos, Twitter/X posts, direct media URLs, or local files
2. Cloud-Grade Quality: Uses AWS Transcribe for professional-level accuracy
3. Rich Output: Generates timestamped transcripts with optional speaker identification
4. Developer-Friendly: Simple CLI that integrates into workflows and scripts
5. Cost-Effective: Pay only for what you use (AWS free tier covers 60 minutes/month)

🔄 How It Works

graph LR
A[Input Source] --> B[Extract Audio]
B --> C[Upload to S3]
C --> D[AWS Transcribe]
D --> E[Process Results]
E --> F[Formatted Output]
A1[YouTube URL] --> A
A2[Local File] --> A
A3[Twitter/X Post] --> A
F --> F1[Plain Text]
F --> F2[SRT Subtitles]
F --> F3[JSON with Metadata]
F --> F4[VTT/CSV]

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🚀 Why Choose RustScribe?

• ⚡ Performance: Built in Rust for speed and reliability
• 🎯 Accuracy: AWS Transcribe provides industry-leading speech recognition
• 🔧 Flexibility: Multiple output formats for different use cases
• 👥 Speaker Detection: Automatically identifies who said what (2-10 speakers)
• ⏱️ Precise Timing: Millisecond-accurate timestamps for perfect synchronization
• 🌍 Multi-Language: Supports auto-detection and 50+ languages
• 💻 Cross-Platform: Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows

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✨ Features

🎥 Multi‑source fetchers	YouTube, Twitter/X, any direct media URL, local audio/video files
🤖 Cloud‑grade ASR	Uses AWS Transcribe Batch API for high‑accuracy speech recognition
👥 Speaker labels	Detects 2 – 10 speakers when --speaker-labels is on
⏱ Timestamps	Fine‑grained timing (--timestamps or millisecond --detailed-timestamps)
🗃 Multiple output formats	text, JSON, SRT, VTT, CSV
📦 Pre‑built binaries	Linux x86_64/arm64, macOS x86_64/arm64, Windows x86_64

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🚀 Quick start

# 1. install (choose one)
git clone https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe.git
cd RustScribe
cargo install --path .# builds and installs from source# or download a binary from Releases page and place it in $PATH# 2. configure AWS (one‑time)# For macOS:
mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/rustscribe && \
cp config.example.yaml ~/Library/Application\ Support/rustscribe/config.yaml
$EDITOR~/Library/Application\ Support/rustscribe/config.yaml # set AWS keys, region & S3 bucket# For Linux:
mkdir -p ~/.config/rustscribe && \
cp config.example.yaml ~/.config/rustscribe/config.yaml
$EDITOR~/.config/rustscribe/config.yaml # set AWS keys, region & S3 bucket# For Windows (PowerShell):
mkdir -Force $env:APPDATA\rustscribe
cp config.example.yaml $env:APPDATA\rustscribe\config.yaml
notepad $env:APPDATA\rustscribe\config.yaml # set AWS keys, region & S3 bucket# 3. transcribe something
rustscribe "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" -o video.srt --timestamps

Cost notice: AWS offers 60 transcription minutes / month free for the first 12 months. After that it's about $0.024 per audio‑minute.

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📦 Dependencies & Installation

RustScribe requires several external tools to function properly:

🔧 System Dependencies

Tool	Purpose	Installation
ffmpeg	Audio/video processing	apt install ffmpeg (Ubuntu) brew install ffmpeg (macOS) choco install ffmpeg (Windows)
yt-dlp	Download from YouTube/Twitter/X	pip install yt-dlp (requires Python 3.7+)
python3	Runtime for yt-dlp	Usually pre-installed on Linux/macOS Download from python.org (Windows)

🦀 Rust Toolchain (for building from source)

# Install Rust (if not already installed)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source~/.cargo/env
# Verify installation
rustc --version
cargo --version

☁️ AWS Setup

1. Create an S3 bucket for temporary audio storage:

   aws s3 mb s3://my-transcribe-cache --region us-east-1

2. AWS Credentials (choose one method):

   • Environment variables: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
   • AWS CLI: aws configure
   • Config file: See Configuration section below
   • IAM role (for EC2/ECS)

⚙️ Configuration

RustScribe supports multiple configuration locations, loaded in the following order (highest priority first):

1. Command-line arguments
2. Environment variables:
   • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
   • AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
   • AWS_REGION
3. Project-local config (for development/testing):
   • .config/rustscribe.yaml
4. User-specific config (for global settings):
   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/rustscribe/config.yaml
   • Linux: ~/.config/rustscribe/config.yaml
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\rustscribe\config.yaml

This hierarchy allows you to:

• Keep sensitive AWS credentials in your user config
• Override settings for specific projects
• Use different settings in CI/CD environments
• Test with different configurations

See config.example.yaml for all available settings and their descriptions.

🛠️ Quick Install Scripts

Ubuntu/Debian:

# System dependencies
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ffmpeg python3 python3-pip
# Python dependencies
pip3 install yt-dlp
# Rust (if needed)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
# RustScribe (download pre-built binary or build from source)# Option 1: Download binary
wget https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe/releases/latest/download/rustscribe-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf rustscribe-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
sudo mv rustscribe /usr/local/bin/
# Option 2: Build from source
git clone https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe.git
cd RustScribe
cargo install --path .

macOS:

# System dependencies (via Homebrew)
brew install ffmpeg yt-dlp
# Rust (if needed)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
# RustScribe (download pre-built binary or build from source)# Option 1: Download binary (Intel)
wget https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe/releases/latest/download/rustscribe-macos-x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf rustscribe-macos-x86_64.tar.gz
sudo mv rustscribe /usr/local/bin/
# Option 1b: Download binary (Apple Silicon)
wget https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe/releases/latest/download/rustscribe-macos-arm64.tar.gz
tar -xzf rustscribe-macos-arm64.tar.gz
sudo mv rustscribe /usr/local/bin/
# Option 2: Build from source
git clone https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe.git
cd RustScribe
cargo install --path .

Windows (PowerShell as Administrator):

# System dependencies (via Chocolatey)
choco install ffmpeg python yt-dlp
# Rust (if needed)# Download and run rustup-init.exe from https://rustup.rs/# RustScribe (download pre-built binary or build from source)# Option 1: Download binaryInvoke-WebRequest-Uri "https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe/releases/latest/download/rustscribe-windows-x86_64.zip"-OutFile "rustscribe.zip"Expand-Archive-Path "rustscribe.zip"-DestinationPath "."Move-Item"rustscribe.exe""$env:ProgramFiles\rustscribe.exe"$env:PATH+=";$env:ProgramFiles"# Option 2: Build from source
git clone https://github.com/catorch/RustScribe.git
cd RustScribe
cargo install --path .

✅ Verify Installation

# Check all dependencies
ffmpeg -version
yt-dlp --version
python3 --version
rustscribe --version
# Test basic functionality
rustscribe --help

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📋 Usage examples

Task	Command
Quick transcript to stdout	rustscribe "meeting.mp3"
Save SRT & keep audio file	rustscribe https://x.com/user/status/123 -o talk.srt --save-audio
Spanish auto‑detect with speaker labels	rustscribe lecture.wav --speaker-labels --language es
JSON + millisecond timestamps	rustscribe podcast.mp3 --format json --detailed-timestamps

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🛠 Configuration file (~/.config/rustscribe/config.yaml)

aws:
access_key_id: "AKIA…"# or use env vars / IAM rolesecret_access_key: "••••"region: "us-east-1"s3_bucket: "my-transcribe-cache"s3_key_prefix: "transcripts/"# optionalapp:
keep_audio: false # save raw audio after processingdefault_language: null # null = auto‑detectmax_concurrent_jobs: 3# AWS quota dependent

Need an S3 bucket?

aws s3 mb s3://my-transcribe-cache --region us-east-1

Attach this minimal IAM policy to your user/role:

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:GetObject",
"s3:DeleteObject"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::my-transcribe-cache/*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"transcribe:StartTranscriptionJob",
"transcribe:GetTranscriptionJob"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

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🏗 Architecture overview

graph TD
A[URL / local file] -->|yt-dlp / ffmpeg| B[Audio file]
B -->|upload| C[S3 bucket]
C --> D[AWS Transcribe]
D -->|JSON| E[Post‑processor]
E --> F[Text / SRT / VTT / CSV]

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🧰 Tech stack

• Rust 2021 – async/await with Tokio, error handling via anyhow/thiserror
• AWS SDK for Rust – S3 + Transcribe Batch
• Media tooling – yt‑dlp for fast downloads, ffmpeg for conversion
• CI/CD – GitHub Actions matrix cross‑compilation + release artifacts
• DX polish – progress bars with indicatif, structured logs via tracing

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🤝 Contributing

PRs and issues welcome! Run the dev checks:

cargo fmt -- --check
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test

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📄 License

MIT – see the LICENSE file.

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