Tempo

A light video editor for Linux that works like DaVinci Resolve's Edit page.

Tempo is for people who want to start editing video on an ordinary laptop. It uses the same layout and the same keyboard shortcuts as DaVinci Resolve, so everything you learn in Tempo carries over when you move to Resolve later. It also works well as a small, quick editor for cutting a video and posting it.

• Runs on weak hardware. No graphics card needed. Developed and measured on a dual-core Intel Core i3 with integrated graphics.
• No waiting on import. Files are usable at once; nothing is converted first.
• Same keys as Resolve. Every shared shortcut is checked against a key file exported from DaVinci Resolve 20.

Alpha release. Tempo is version 0.1 and is not stable yet. Expect bugs, rough edges and changes between versions, and keep a copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. Do not rely on it for important work. The downloads on the Releases page are marked as pre-releases for this reason. See what is not done yet, and please report what goes wrong.

What it does

• Project Manager to create and open projects.
• Edit page with a Media Pool, viewer, Inspector and timeline, arranged as in Resolve.
• Editing: insert, overwrite, append, place on top, move, trim, blade, razor, ripple delete, snapping, nudge. Every edit can be undone.
• Preview with sound, with the picture following the audio clock.
• Right-click menus on timeline clips, on gaps and in the Media Pool, for the edits a beginner looks for first.
• Linked picture and sound: a clip and its sound move, cut, trim and delete together until you unlink them.
• Proxies and preview quality: heavy footage gets a small 540p copy made in the background. The Preview button above the viewer switches between Full (the original file), Half and Quarter; Half is the default. Export always reads the original files.
• Markers that become chapters: name a marker and it is written into the exported file and offered as a ready-to-paste timestamp list, with YouTube's rules checked.
• Export page: pick an output by frame shape — 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 or 4:5 — queue several, and keep editing while they render.

Install

Packages for each release are on the Releases page: an AppImage, a Flatpak bundle, an .rpm and a .deb, with a SHA256SUMS file to verify the download:

sha256sum --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS

Tempo needs the ffmpeg program at run time (the .deb and .rpm depend on it; the AppImage carries its own).

Build from source

You need Rust, GTK 4.14 or newer, libadwaita 1.6 or newer, PipeWire and FFmpeg.

Fedora

sudo dnf install gcc clang-devel rust cargo gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel glib2-devel \
    pipewire-devel ffmpeg-free ffmpeg-free-devel

Ubuntu 25.04 or newer

sudo apt install build-essential clang libclang-dev pkg-config libgtk-4-dev \
    libadwaita-1-dev libglib2.0-dev-bin libpipewire-0.3-dev libavcodec-dev \
    libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libswresample-dev libavfilter-dev \
    libavdevice-dev ffmpeg

Then:

./scripts/check_env.sh        # confirms everything is installed
cargo run --release --bin tempo

./scripts/run_all_tests.sh builds everything and runs every test.

Keyboard shortcuts

The same as DaVinci Resolve. A few to start with:

Key	Action
Space	Play / stop
J K L	Play reverse, stop, play forward (press again to go faster)
A T B	Selection, Trim, Blade
Ctrl+B	Cut at the playhead
Backspace	Delete, leaving a gap
Shift+Backspace	Delete and close the gap
F9 F10	Insert, Overwrite
I O	Mark In, Mark Out
M	Add a marker
N	Snapping on / off
Shift+4 Shift+8	Edit page, Export page
F1	Show all shortcuts

The full list is in docs/KEYBINDS.md.

What is not done yet

• Hardware (VA-API) decoding and encoding exist but are switched off by default: they have not yet been tried on a machine with a working driver.
• No upload plugin for a real site ships yet. The plugin point works (see docs/PLUGIN_SPEC.md), but each site needs its own developer keys.
• Keyframe animation.
• The Inspector changes one clip at a time, also when several are selected.
• Some DaVinci Resolve keys are listed in docs/KEYBINDS.md but not built yet (loop playback, paste insert, select forward, and others); that file marks them.

The complete, current list is at the top of docs/ROADMAP.md.

How it is built

Language	Rust
Interface	GTK 4 and libadwaita
Decoding	FFmpeg libraries
Export and proxies	the ffmpeg program
Sound	PipeWire
Project file	SQLite, one .tempo file

crates/
  tempo-timeline/   data model and undoable commands
  tempo-media/      probing, video and audio decoding
  tempo-audio/      PipeWire output
  tempo-proxy/      background proxy files
  tempo-export/     export, chapters
  tempo-project/    project file
  tempo-ui/         the interface
  tempo-app/        the program

Design and behaviour are described in docs/.

Contributing

Read docs/AGENT_PROMPT.md first; it lists the rules the code follows (nothing slow on the interface thread, every edit undoable, Resolve's keys). Run ./scripts/run_all_tests.sh before opening a pull request.

Licence

Tempo is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3. See LICENSE.

DaVinci Resolve is a trademark of Blackmagic Design. Tempo is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Blackmagic Design.