woof
by ouestcharlie
README.md
<p align="center"><img src="assets/woof_large_850.png" alt="Woof" height="360"></p>
# Woof — See your Photo Gallery in your AI assistant
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[](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/) [](https://github.com/astral-sh/uv)
mcp-name: io.github.ouestcharlie/ouestcharlie-woof
Woof is the photo and video gallery companion to your **your AI assistant** (Claude Desktop, Goose, VS Code / GitHub Copilot...). It complements those powerful tools with a searchable **gallery**. Your photos and videos remain exactly where they are — on your own drives (local or mounted).
No cloud subscription. No proprietary lock-in. Your library, your way.
Woof is the **MCP App** frontend to **"Où est Charlie ?"** ("Where is Wally?" in French), a full AI native framework to manage your photos and videos.
## What makes it different
Most photo managers lock your library into a cloud service (Google Photos, iCloud) or require a database server that becomes a single point of failure. Woof takes a different approach:
- **Conversation as your gallery.** Woof connects to your AI assistant (Claude Desktop, Goose, VS Code / GitHub Copilot…) and turns it into a full photo browser. Ask in plain language, get results inline. No separate app to learn.
- **Privacy by design.** Only metadata travels to your AI assistant — your actual photos are served locally by Woof. Your pictures are never uploaded to any AI service unless you explicitly ask.
- **No database lock-in.** Metadata lives as XMP sidecar files right next to your photos, plus lightweight JSON manifests. Move a drive, copy a folder — your entire organization travels with your photos.
- **Open formats, forever.** XMP is an ISO standard. JSON is universal. AVIF is royalty-free. Every tool you already use — Lightroom, darktable, ExifTool — can read your metadata today and long after OuEstCharlie is gone.
- **Your photos are never touched.** Woof reads your library as-is. It never modifies, moves, or deletes your original files. It also honors existing XMP metadata from Lightroom, darktable, or any other tool — rather than overwriting it.
- **Works with your existing folder structure.** Just point Woof at your photos folder. No migration, no reorganization required.
> **More about OuEstCharlie and Woof on the [OuEstCharlie Blog](https://ouestcharlie.github.io)**
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## Installation and first steps
> **See [OuEstCharlie Woof install and first steps](https://ouestcharlie.github.io/2026/04/01/ouestcharlie-woof-install-first-steps/)**
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## Status
Woof is an **early preview**. It works well today for browsing and searching a local photo library.
### Current features
| Feature | Notes |
|---|---|
| Compatible with Claude Desktop, Goose, VS Code| Any desktop application with MCP App support|
| Available on Macos, Windows, Linux| Python packages are built and released in Pypi|
| Local filesystem indexing | Files must be locally synced |
| Photos (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC, RAW) | HEIC and RAW depend on the build options |
| Video support (MOV, MP4) ||
| Gallery view as grid or preview | Photo details on preview |
| Image thumbnails and previews | Optimized for display |
| Search description, tags, rating, date, partition | full text search on description |
| Hierarchical tags (`Places\|Europe\|France`), shared with darktable and Lightroom | search a whole branch or a tag at any level; darktable's own tags are left out |
| Search photo features (date, dimensions, GPS bounding box) | |
| Search video features (duration, dimensions, GPS bounding box) | |
| Search camera features (make, model, aperture, lens) | |
| Sort ascending or descending on any field | |
| Change detection / automatic re-indexing | Partial — added and removed pictures, and sidecars edited by other tools (darktable, digiKam…); indexing is not yet triggered automatically |
### Planned features
| Feature |
|---|
| Albums and smart filters |
| Share pictures with host (Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Goose…) |
| Enrichment agents (faces, scene recognition) |
| Mobile companion app |
| Native cloud libraries (S3, OneDrive, GCS…) |
If you hit a bug or unexpected behavior, please [open an issue](https://github.com/ouestcharlie/ouestcharlie-woof/issues).
<p align="center"><img src="assets/screenshot_vscode_2026-08-25.jpg" alt="Woof in VSCode" height="500"></p>
<p align="center"><i>Ouestcharlie Woof photo gallery inside VSCode, an alternative to Claude CoWork for techies</i></p>
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## Privacy Policy
Woof is designed with privacy as a core principle.
- **Data collected**: Only photo metadata (EXIF, GPS coordinates, camera make/model, dates, file paths) is read and indexed. No account or personal information is collected.
- **Data storage**: All metadata is stored locally on your own device as XMP sidecar files and JSON manifests alongside your photos. No data is stored on any remote server.
- **AI assistant**: Only metadata is sent to your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Goose…) when you perform a search. Thumbnails and previews remain in the MCP App gallery widgets: they are served by Woof from your machine (loopback only) and never pass through the assistant. Your original photo files are never uploaded to any AI service unless you explicitly share them.
- **Third parties**: No metadata or usage data is shared with any third party.
- **Retention**: All data remains under your full control. Deleting the XMP sidecars and `.ouestcharlie/` folders from your photo library completely removes all Woof metadata.
For privacy questions, please [open an issue](https://github.com/ouestcharlie/ouestcharlie-woof/issues).
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## Support
**Bug reports and feature requests**: [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/ouestcharlie/ouestcharlie-woof/issues)
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## Developers' corner
For developer and architecture documentation, see [README_DEV.md](README_DEV.md).
### Contributing
See the [Contributing section in OuEstCharlie](https://github.com/ouestcharlie/ouestcharlie#contributing)
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## License
[MIT license](LICENCE)
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