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What is constellate?

jcarterjohnson/constellate — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

24SwiftAudience · vibe coderComplexity · 3/5Setup · moderate

In one sentence

Constellate turns your saved AI chat history into an explorable 3D map where similar conversations cluster together, running entirely on your own computer.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Maps chat history in 3D
      Groups similar topics
      Time based layout view
    Tech stack
      Swift
      SwiftUI
      SceneKit and Metal
      Three.js
    Use cases
      Explore old AI chats
      Find related conversations
      Review chat history visually
    Audience
      Vibe coders
      Privacy focused users
      Mac developers
    Privacy
      Runs fully local
      No servers or accounts
      No uploads
    Setup
      Web app zero build
      Mac app build from source

Code map

Detail Auto

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Browse your entire ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini chat history as a visual map instead of a list.

USE CASE 2

Find old conversations that covered a similar topic by looking at what clusters near them.

USE CASE 3

Try the demo universe to see how conversation clustering works before importing your own data.

USE CASE 4

Set up folder sync on Mac to keep the map automatically updated as you export new chats.

What is it built with?

SwiftSwiftUISceneKitMetalThree.jsHTML

How does it compare?

jcarterjohnson/constellateashutosh160798/context-scopeunrelatedlabs/macbook-charger-power-indicator
Stars242424
LanguageSwiftSwiftSwift
Setup difficultymoderatehardeasy
Complexity3/53/52/5
Audiencevibe coderdevelopergeneral

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 5min

The web app just opens in a browser, but the native Mac app requires building from source with Xcode on Apple silicon.

The README does not state a license.

So what is it?

Constellate takes your entire chat history with AI assistants, across every provider and model you have used, and turns it into an explorable 3D map. Conversations that cover similar topics are pulled close together, so where a conversation sits in the map tells you how related it is to the others. A second view arranges conversations by time on one axis and their two strongest topic differences on the others. The project ships as two separate apps that share the same underlying engine and file format. The first is a web app that is just a single HTML file with a copy of the Three.js graphics library included, so you open it in a browser and there is nothing to install. The second is a native Mac app built with SwiftUI and rendered with SceneKit and Metal, which does everything the web app does plus some extra features when the hardware supports them. A core idea behind the project is privacy. Everything runs on your own computer: importing your chat exports, finding similarities between conversations, calculating the layout, and drawing the 3D scene. Nothing is uploaded anywhere and there are no accounts or servers involved. You bring your own exported chat history from services like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, or you can drop in markdown files. The repository itself contains no real personal conversations, only a small invented demo dataset you can load to try the app out. The web app can be opened by double-clicking the file, and it supports drag-and-drop importing, with an optional folder-watching feature in Chrome or Edge that automatically picks up new export files. The Mac app has to be built from source code using Apple's Xcode tools, and it requires an Apple silicon Mac. It has optional AI features, like generating plain-language names for topic clusters, that only work if a setting called Apple Intelligence is turned on, without it the app still works for browsing, searching, and importing, it just skips those specific features and says why.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Walk me through opening Constellate's web app and loading the demo universe for the first time.
Prompt 2
Explain how to export my ChatGPT conversation history so I can import it into Constellate.
Prompt 3
Help me build the Constellate macOS app from source using the Command Line Tools instructions.
Prompt 4
What does it mean that Constellate conversations dedupe by ID when I re-import an export?
Prompt 5
Explain why the Mac app's AI features need Apple Intelligence turned on to work.

Frequently asked questions

What is constellate?

Constellate turns your saved AI chat history into an explorable 3D map where similar conversations cluster together, running entirely on your own computer.

What language is constellate written in?

Mainly Swift. The stack also includes Swift, SwiftUI, SceneKit.

What license does constellate use?

The README does not state a license.

How hard is constellate to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is constellate for?

Mainly vibe coder.

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