Local-first guides for transcription, summarization, and note workflows

These guides are for people building local-first knowledge workflows—solo developers, Obsidian users, and anyone who wants transcription and summarization without handing files to a cloud service.

Each guide stands on its own: install steps, tradeoffs, and troubleshooting you can use with any tool stack. Nucleate is one option in that stack, not the reason the guide exists.

What these guides are — and are not

• Practical how-tos — search-friendly setup and workflow guides for local AI and note-taking
• Not Nucleate product docs — installation, menus, and in-app settings live there
• Not studio build logs — those cover how this site and its systems were built

Start here

I want offline transcription
Start with Local vs cloud transcription, then see Voice memos to Markdown if you use Obsidian.

I want local summarization / Ollama
Start with Ollama on Windows or Ollama on macOS, then browse Local summarization for model and workflow notes.

I use Obsidian and want sync + voice notes
Start with Obsidian offline sync, then Voice memos to Markdown.

Explore

Built for this stack

If you want audio → Markdown → rollups on autopilot, Nucleate runs that pipeline locally on Windows and macOS. Free to use; no subscription.