Hildegard: your own film studio, on your own GPU

The work

Made with Hildegard

Frames from real takes, with the prompt the director wrote and the settings they chose. Each take is 5 seconds at 24 fps, rendered on one 12 GB laptop GPU.

The Studio

Direct it like a film

Pick a camera, a lens, an aperture and a move. Hildegard turns them into words the model understands, then keeps every take on the board.

The Hildegard Studio showing the Neon Rain film board, with four kept takes and their posters. — The Neon Rain board, with four kept takes.

The Illuminator, shot III, open in the Studio’s Inspector with its camera rig settings. — The Illuminator, shot III, in the Inspector.

Camera language
Bodies, lenses, apertures, moves and film looks, the way a cinematographer says them.
Shots become a film
Keep the takes you like, put shots in order and export the film.
Open models
LTX and Wan, run through ComfyUI on your GPU. Each model’s license is shown before it downloads.

Install

Install Hildegard

Pick your computer.

The desktop app

Download it, open it, and follow the steps. No admin rights needed.

Download for Windows

Hildegard_x64-setup.exe 64-bit

Or one line in PowerShell

Also no admin rights. Installs in your home folder.

irm https://dbaney.com/hildegard/install.ps1 | iex

The app isn’t signed yet in this pre-alpha, so Windows asks you to confirm. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
On Windows, Hildegard renders on NVIDIA graphics cards. AMD support is coming.

The desktop app

Download it, open it, and follow the steps.

Download for Mac

Hildegard_aarch64.dmg Apple silicon

Or one line in Terminal

Works on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. No sudo.

curl -fsSL https://dbaney.com/hildegard/install.sh | sh

On a Mac, takes render on another computer’s GPU with NVIDIA or AMD graphics. The models don’t render well on Apple’s GPU yet.
The app isn’t signed yet in this pre-alpha, so macOS asks you to confirm. Open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, and choose Open Anyway.

The desktop app

Download it, make it executable, and open it.

Download for Linux

Hildegard_amd64.AppImage x86-64

Or one line in a terminal

Installs in your home folder. No sudo.

curl -fsSL https://dbaney.com/hildegard/install.sh | sh

NVIDIA and AMD cards both work on Linux. On Omarchy? There’s a bar widget.

The bar widget

A ring in your bar that fills while a shot renders. Add it, click the ring, and choose Set up Hildegard.

omarchy plugin add https://github.com/baney75/omarchy-hildegard --enable

Or one line in a terminal

The widget finds Hildegard on its own.

curl -fsSL https://dbaney.com/hildegard/install.sh | sh

The widget runs no root commands and changes none of your config. Built for Omarchy 4.

Then pick a model

The app walks you through it. In a terminal, it’s two commands.

```
hildegard setup
```
Picks a video model that fits your GPU and links your AI apps.
```
hildegard open
```
Opens the Studio in your browser.

Checks every download against a SHA-256 written into the installer.
Puts everything in one folder: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Hildegard
Sets up ComfyUI and PyTorch for your GPU, then starts Hildegard.

What you need

A graphics card does the rendering

The more memory it has, the better the model it can run. hildegard setup checks yours and picks the best one that fits. Every frame above came from a 12 GB laptop GPU.

24GBor more

NVIDIA, or AMD on Linux

LTX-2.5 distilled

Video with sound, up to 1088p.
12GBto 23 GB

NVIDIA, or AMD on Linux

Wan 2.2 5B

Silent video at 720p. With 9 to 11 GB it still runs, just slower.
A Mac

Apple silicon

Your other computer’s GPU

The Studio runs on the Mac. Takes render on a paired computer with an NVIDIA or AMD GPU, since the models don’t render well on Apple’s GPU yet. Pair it with another computer.
Anything else

A laptop, or no GPU

Another computer’s GPU

Install it anyway, and let it render on another device.

Disk: 18 GB for Wan 2.2, 37 GB for LTX-2.5, plus room for PyTorch.
Rights: No admin rights or sudo. It all stays in your home folder.
Network: Only to download. After that, every shot renders offline.

The Choir

Render on another device

A Mac or laptop without a big GPU can render on one of your other computers. Put both on your Tailscale network and install Hildegard on both.

On the computer with the GPU
```
hildegard choir invite
```
Prints a one-line join code. Treat it like a password.
On the other computer
```
hildegard choir join
```
Paste the code when it asks. It won’t show on screen.
See it work
```
hildegard choir list
```
Shots now render there, and the Studio says so. Models installed there count here, so nothing downloads twice.

hildegard choir use local renders here again. In the Studio, Settings, then Devices, does all of this with buttons.

Your Mac and phone send shots to the GPU, over Tailscale.

Agents

Let your AI apps help

An agent can install Hildegard for you. Once it’s running, any AI app you link can direct shots on your GPU.

Set it up with an agent

Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other AI apps can do it. Paste this into one.

Install Hildegard on this computer for me. Follow https://github.com/baney75/hildegard/blob/main/INSTALL-FOR-AGENTS.md step by step. Ask me before you accept any model license, and never ask me for a token or passphrase.

It shows you each model’s license word for word and asks first. For hosting and devices too, point it at the full guide for agents.

Then direct shots from them

Hildegard is an MCP server. Link an app, and it can direct shots on your GPU.

hildegard connect --all     # every app on this computer
hildegard connect cursor    # or just one
hildegard connect --print   # the config, for any other app

Works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, VS Code, Windsurf and LM Studio. Each app’s config is backed up before Hildegard adds itself.

direct_shot
shot_status
get_shot
cancel_take
make_sequence
export_film
list_presets
install_model
hildegard_status

Host mode

Host your own at a link

Your studio at an HTTPS link, for your phone, your laptop and the people you invite. Everyone signs in. It uses Tailscale, so install it and sign in first.

```
hildegard host owner
```
Choose your name and a passphrase for signing in from other devices.
```
hildegard host
```
Prints your link, like https://my-pc.tail1234.ts.net. Open it anywhere on your tailnet.
```
hildegard host invite
```
A one-time link for someone else to join as a director.

Directors: Make films of their own, which only they and owners see.
Owners: Can do everything: models, devices, people and settings.

The link stays inside your tailnet. hildegard host --funnel puts it on the public internet, so use a long passphrase. hildegard host off turns it off.

Hugging Face

Link Hugging Face, safely

Wan 2.2 downloads without an account. LTX asks you to accept its license on Hugging Face first, so Hildegard needs your account to fetch it.

hildegard hf login

It signs you in with Hugging Face, or asks for a read token at a prompt that doesn’t show what you type. In the Studio, Settings, then Hugging Face, does the same.

Kept in your keychain. macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, or the Secret Service on Linux. Without one, a file only you can read.
Never on a command line. Never written to ~/.cache/huggingface or shown in your shell history.
Never shown to AI apps. If an agent asks you to paste your token into a chat, don’t.

Reference

The fine print

Check what you downloadChecksums for the installer

The installer checks every file it fetches against a SHA-256 written into it, and refuses any that don’t match. To check the installer itself first, fetch it with the release’s SHA256SUMS. Once it’s running, hildegard doctor checks every part and prints the command that fixes each problem.

$u = 'https://github.com/baney75/hildegard/releases/latest/download'
iwr "$u/install.ps1" -OutFile install.ps1
iwr "$u/SHA256SUMS" -OutFile SHA256SUMS
(Get-FileHash install.ps1).Hash.ToLower()
Select-String ' install.ps1$' SHA256SUMS
# the two hashes match? then run it
Get-Content install.ps1 -Raw | iex

u=https://github.com/baney75/hildegard/releases/latest/download
curl -fsSLO "$u/install.sh"
curl -fsSLO "$u/SHA256SUMS"
grep ' install.sh$' SHA256SUMS | shasum -a 256 -c
# says OK? then run it
sh install.sh

u=https://github.com/baney75/hildegard/releases/latest/download
curl -fsSLO "$u/install.sh"
curl -fsSLO "$u/SHA256SUMS"
sha256sum --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS
# says OK? then run it
sh install.sh

Remove HildegardOne folder, so it’s quick

Everything lives in one folder in your home. Your models and films are in that folder too: export any film you want to keep first. Remove the desktop app like any other app. hildegard disconnect <app> unlinks an AI app.

hildegard hf logout
hildegard stop
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Hildegard"

Then take Hildegard\bin out of your PATH: search Windows for “environment variables for your account”.

hildegard hf logout
hildegard stop
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Hildegard ~/.local/bin/hildegard

hildegard hf logout
hildegard stop
rm -rf ~/.local/share/hildegard ~/.local/bin/hildegard

omarchy plugin remove io.github.baney75.hildegard
rm -rf ~/.local/state/hildegard-omarchy
hildegard hf logout
hildegard stop
rm -rf ~/.local/share/hildegard ~/.local/bin/hildegard

Open, and yours to keep. Model weights are never bundled: Hildegard fetches each one from its publisher, shows you its license and asks before the first download.

The app: AGPL-3.0; Free to use, change and share. If you run a changed Hildegard for other people, offer them its source.
The presets: Apache-2.0; Every camera, lens, move and look, plus the film-look node. Reuse them in your own tools.
Wan 2.2: Apache-2.0; Free for anyone, for any use.
LTX-2 and LTX-2.5: LTX Community; Their own license: free for people and companies under $10M in yearly revenue.

Your own film studio, on your own GPU.

Made with Hildegard

Direct it like a film

Camera language

Shots become a film

Open models

Install Hildegard

The desktop app

Or one line in PowerShell

The desktop app

Or one line in Terminal

The desktop app

Or one line in a terminal

The bar widget

Or one line in a terminal

Then pick a model

A graphics card does the rendering

Render on another device

Let your AI apps help

Set it up with an agent

Then direct shots from them

Host your own at a link

Link Hugging Face, safely

The fine print

Every work begins as a vision.