azimut 0.2.2

A local OSINT workspace for media, geolocation proofs and case management.

Azimut

Azimut is a local OSINT workspace for reviewing media, building geolocation proofs and keeping case notes together.

It is built for open-source investigators, journalists and researchers. Each case is a plain folder that can be reopened, archived or shared.

The name is the French word for azimuth, the compass bearing you sight along to fix a point on the map.

v0.2.2: Login-walled downloads

Tool	What it does
Media	Import local files or download by URL (X, Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and more via yt-dlp, with a gallery-dl fallback for image-only posts). Public media is fetched cookie-less; a login-walled post prompts once for a browser session or an exported cookies.txt. Each item gets a clean local file, metadata and a SHA-256. Multi-photo posts open a picker.
Reverse Search	Prepare an image or a video frame for keyless reverse-image services. Nothing uploads on its own.
Inspect	A scratch workspace over any photo or video: frame adjustments, editable crop, sharpest-frame capture, hand-made collage with per-piece warp/scale/rotate, auto-stitch to solve a panorama's layout, and ELA hints. Nothing enters the case until you save.
Satellite	Coordinates or a place name become an imagery crop, with select-area capture, map rotation, measurement tools, reference overlays and editable AOI grids for area review. Esri/OSM by default; add a Mapbox or Google key for more basemaps.
Coordinates	Convert common coordinate formats, copy the result, and open map or geocoding links.
Geo Proof	Start a named proof from a reusable house style, select case panels with search, compose them in a grid or free layout, annotate with colored shapes/freehand/text, and export proof.png plus a re-editable spec.
Geo Report	Turn a proof into a prepared thread for X, Bluesky, or Mastodon: coordinates, plus code, attribution, target-specific character counts, media, and a structured Markdown case note with linked evidence.
Notebook	Tabbed Markdown notes with local media, linked case evidence, broken-reference markers and a print-ready PDF view.

Under the hood: reusable proof and thread templates, per-case SQLite with a bounded catalog, a durable one-worker thumbnail queue, the map-capture browser extension, and cross-platform binaries with a bundled ffmpeg.

Every tool works one-shot (a scratch session, no setup) or inside a case, a plain directory holding the whole investigation.

New in v0.2.2:

• Downloads now handle login-walled media. The first attempt is always cookie-less; only when a post turns out to need an account does Media offer to borrow a signed-in browser's session or an exported cookies.txt. The session is used for that download, kept 0600 in the workspace, and never leaves the machine. Chromium on Windows can't be read, so it points you to the file route.
• The Geo Proof toolbar reflows to fit narrow screens instead of overflowing, and remembers the color and stroke width you last drew with.

Install & run

pipx install azimut   # isolated app install; plain `pip install azimut` also works
azimut                # starts on http://127.0.0.1:8477 and opens a browser tab

Update with pipx upgrade azimut, remove with pipx uninstall azimut. Your cases and settings live under ~/Azimut; upgrades and uninstalling the app do not remove them. Delete ~/Azimut manually if you also want to remove the data.

Azimut runs in a normal browser tab (Firefox/Chrome); there is no separate window. Closing the terminal it prints its URL into stops the app.

Ready-to-run binary (no Python)

Each release attaches a self-contained binary per OS. Download it from the Releases page and run it; it opens Azimut in your browser.

OS	Asset
Windows	azimut-windows-x86_64.exe
macOS (Apple Silicon)	azimut-macos-arm64
macOS (Intel)	No standalone binary; install with pipx or pip
Linux	azimut-linux-x86_64

Intel Macs are supported through the Python package. They do not have a downloadable standalone binary.

First run, the binaries are unsigned, so the OS warns before letting them open:

• macOS: right-click the file → Open → Open (Gatekeeper only offers "Open" from the context menu for unidentified developers), or run xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./azimut-macos-* once.
• Windows: SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC"; click More info → Run anyway.
• Linux: mark it executable with chmod +x azimut-linux-x86_64.

To update, Settings → About → Check for updates tells you when a newer release is out and links the download; replace the old file with the new one. To uninstall, delete the file. Either way ~/Azimut stays put, so your cases open unchanged in the new version.

The downloadable binaries bundle a static ffmpeg (and ffprobe), so video thumbnails, frame scans, video enhancement, and downloads that merge separate audio+video streams work out of the box. If you pip install azimut instead, put ffmpeg on your PATH for those features. Everything else works without it. The bundled ffmpeg is redistributed under its own license; see ffmpeg.org/legal.html.

From source:

Requires Python 3.11+ and Node.js 20+ for the frontend build.

macOS and Linux:

git clone https://github.com/OsintMeThat/azimut && cd azimut
python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e ".[dev]"
cd frontend && npm ci && npm run build && cd ..
.venv/bin/azimut

Windows PowerShell:

git clone https://github.com/OsintMeThat/azimut
Set-Location azimut
py -3.11 -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"
Set-Location frontend
npm ci
npm run build
Set-Location ..
.venv\Scripts\azimut.exe

Rebuild and relaunch the local app with the cross-platform helper:

python3 scripts/relaunch.py       # macOS / Linux
py scripts\relaunch.py            # Windows

The tool rebuilds the frontend, stops the previous Azimut instance started through the same tool, and launches the fresh build. It never kills unrelated processes by name. Use --no-browser to keep it from opening a new tab.

Frontend development (hot reload, proxied API):

.venv/bin/azimut --no-browser &     # backend on :8477
cd frontend && npm run dev          # UI on :5173

Checks (CI runs these on every push):

uv run ruff check src tests   # lint
uv run mypy                    # type-check the backend
cd frontend && npm run check   # svelte-check (blocks on errors)

Capture extension (optional)

A browser extension (Chrome/Edge and Firefox) captures external map sites straight into a case: Google Maps & Earth, Bing, Yandex, OSM, Apple Maps, Zoom Earth, Copernicus Browser and Satellites.pro, one screenshot per click with coordinates parsed from the URL. It also powers the Capture button on the Google (Maps JS) basemap. Install it from Settings → Capture extension (download the zip, load unpacked, pair with the token shown there); full instructions in extension/README.md.

Building & releasing

The Svelte frontend builds into src/azimut/static/ (git-ignored) and is bundled into the Python wheel via hatchling artifacts. So npm run build must run before building the package, or the shipped UI is stale.

cd frontend && npm run build && cd ..    # refresh the bundled UI
uv sync --frozen --no-dev --group release --no-install-project
uv sync --frozen --no-dev --group release --no-build-isolation --no-editable
uv run --no-sync python -m build --no-isolation
uv run --no-sync pyinstaller packaging/azimut.spec

Dependencies

pyproject.toml declares ranges (the contract for pip install azimut users); uv.lock pins the exact set, and is what CI and the release builds install. The wheel only declares its dependencies, but the binary contains them, so building it outside the lock ships whatever the resolver happened to pick that day.

uv lock --check                  # CI does this: is the lock in sync with pyproject?
uv lock --upgrade                # refresh everything, then run the suite
uv lock --upgrade-package yt-dlp # refresh one

Raising an upper bound is a deliberate act: bump it in pyproject.toml, run uv lock, and make sure the suite passes before it lands. The weekly "latest deps" CI job re-resolves past the lock, so upstream breakage shows up as a red run of ours rather than a broken install for someone else.

yt-dlp and gallery-dl are deliberately unbounded: they track sites that change, so pinning them just schedules a breakage. They can also be updated from inside the app (Settings → About → Downloaders), which is what keeps a months-old binary working.

Releases are automated: push a semver tag and GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/release.yml) builds the wheel + Windows/Linux/macOS binaries, attaches them to a GitHub release, and publishes to PyPI. Don't publish by hand.

git tag v0.2.2 && git push origin v0.2.2

One-time setup: register the repo as a PyPI Trusted Publisher for the azimut project (no API token to store).

Principles

1. Local-first, privacy-first. No account, no telemetry, no upload; the server binds to 127.0.0.1 only, and Azimut never posts anywhere on your behalf.
2. The case is the product. Media and notes stay as files and the graph lives in per-case SQLite. A closed case folder is complete and portable; a ZIP import/export workflow is planned.
3. One tab = one tool, useful in 30 seconds.
4. Orchestrator, not replacer. Integrate specialized services rather than cloning them.
5. Tools emit facts; the analyst decides. No automated "magic button".
6. Honest output. Every artifact records how it was produced.
7. Free and open source. No paid key is ever required; bring your own for more basemaps.

Full spec: docs/SPEC.md.

License

AGPL-3.0-only: free and open source; hosted or modified versions must share their source.