Claude Lite

A lightweight desktop client for Claude AI with local data persistence.

⚠️ Note: This is not a production-ready application. It's a vibe coding experiment and learning project.

Features

• 💬 Chat with Claude using your own API key
• 📁 Organize chats into projects
• 💾 Local SQLite storage for all data
• 🌊 Real-time streaming responses
• 🎨 Clean, dark-mode interface
• ⚡ Fast and lightweight (built with Tauri + React)

Prerequisites

• Rust (latest stable)
• Node.js (v18 or later)
• pnpm (v9 or later)
• Anthropic API Key

Setup

1. Install dependencies

   pnpm install

2. Configure API Key

   Copy .env.example to .env and add your Anthropic API key:

   cp .env.example .env

   Edit .env:

   ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_actual_api_key_here
   

3. Run in development mode

   pnpm tauri dev

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues, see TROUBLESHOOTING.md for common problems and solutions.

Building for Production

Build the application for your platform:

pnpm tauri build

The built application will be in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Platform-specific outputs:

• macOS: .app bundle in bundle/macos/
• Windows: .exe installer in bundle/msi/
• Linux: .AppImage or .deb in bundle/appimage/ or bundle/deb/

Usage

Creating a Chat

1. Click "New Chat" to start a conversation
2. Type your message and press Enter (or click Send)

Organizing with Projects

1. Click the "+" button next to "Projects" in the sidebar
2. Enter a project name
3. Chats created while a project is selected will belong to that project

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Enter - Send message
• Shift+Enter - New line in message input

Architecture

• Frontend: React + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS + Zustand
• Backend: Rust + Tauri + SQLite
• API: Anthropic Claude API with streaming support

Data Storage

All data is stored locally in SQLite:

• Location: ~/.local/share/claude-lite/claude.db (Linux)
• Location: ~/Library/Application Support/claude-lite/claude.db (macOS)
• Location: %APPDATA%\claude-lite\claude.db (Windows)

Project Structure

claude-lite/
├── src/                    # Frontend (React)
│   ├── components/        # UI components
│   ├── store/            # Zustand stores
│   └── lib/              # Utilities & types
├── src-tauri/             # Backend (Rust)
│   └── src/
│       ├── commands/     # Tauri commands
│       └── db/          # Database logic
└── README.md

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue or PR.