Documentation
Last updated: 8 August 2026
User guide
Concepts
Six ideas — device, source, channel, wire, monitor, graph — and the rest of the product follows from them. Read this before anything else.
Installing
Per operating system, including the driver step and why it needs your password once. Nothing on this page can be done today; the build-from-source section at the bottom does work.
Route one app into OBS
The single most common task, start to finish: a virtual device, an application source, a monitor so you can still hear it, and OBS pointed at the right input.
Per-app capture and permissions
Process taps on macOS, process loopback on Windows, monitor ports on Linux — with the minimum OS version and the consent prompt for each. Partly real, on macOS only.
Troubleshooting
The device does not appear · the recording is silent · crackling · latency · uninstalling. The PipeWire session-manager trap is in here.
CLI reference
Every command: devices, sources, monitors, wires, presets, meters, watch. Names rather than numbers, stable exit codes, and worked examples including building a streaming rig from nothing.
Build it and run the tests
These work today. They give you the engine, the background service and the CLI running against a null backend — no virtual device, no audio hardware, but a real daemon over a real socket that you can drive with the CLI and read the code against.
git clone https://github.com/deepakmarathe/audiowire.gitcargo build --workspacecargo run -p aw-daemon -- --backend null --print-socketcargo test --workspace129 tests, about 50 seconds — the lock-free ring soak alone is 20 of them. The UI has a further 36 under ui/.
Design and decision documents
The reasoning behind the product is public too, including the parts that are unflattering. If any of it disagrees with this website, the repository is right.
- spec.mdThe locked product spec, including §7 — where we actually are, per platform.
- 01-competitors.mdThe full competitor matrix with a source URL for every price and version.
- licensing.mdKey format, offline verification, and the settled commercial terms.
- privilege-model.mdWho may call which control interface, and the limit that cannot be closed.
- security-review.mdThe internal review in full, including the findings still open.
- CONTRIBUTING.mdHow to work on it, and the clean-room rule that binds anyone touching a platform backend.
Everything lives at github.com/deepakmarathe/audiowire.