Cadence

A minimal Spotify player for macOS.
Native, responsive, and typically uses around 120 MB of RAM.

Features

• Search tracks and playlists
• Play music locally with queue, history, favorites, and radio
• Browse native artist and album pages
• Light, dark, and system appearances
• Persistent playback and library state

Built With

Rust + GPUI + librespot + rspotify + SQLite + SDL2

GPUI renders the native GPU-accelerated interface, librespot handles playback, rspotify connects to the Spotify Web API, and SQLite keeps local state.

Set Up Spotify

Cadence requires macOS and Spotify Premium. On first launch, Cadence guides you through creating a Spotify developer app and entering its Client ID. Client IDs are public; Cadence never needs your client secret.

1. Create an app in the Spotify Developer Dashboard.
2. Add http://127.0.0.1:8888/callback as a redirect URI.
3. Copy the Client ID from Basic Information and enter it in Cadence.

Cadence stores the Client ID in app preferences and keeps login and playback tokens in macOS Keychain.

Run From Source

Building Cadence requires Rust and Apple's Metal Toolchain. Developers can skip the setup screen by setting SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID at launch:

SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id" cargo run

For a stable local signature and fewer Keychain prompts during development:

SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id" ./scripts/run-signed.sh

Releases

Version tags publish an optimized macOS app and SHA-256 checksum on the releases page. Current builds use an ad-hoc signature and are not notarized, so macOS may require using Open from the app's context menu on first launch.

Release builds do not include a shared Spotify Client ID. Each person configures their own Spotify developer app on first launch. The logo attribution is in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

License

MIT