What it is

Nuclear is a free, open-source music player for Windows, macOS, and Linux that streams music from multiple sources without ads or tracking. The project lives in the desktop music-player ecosystem and is written primarily in TypeScript, with a Tauri application built from Rust and React. It is distributed under the AGPL-3.0 license.

The concrete problem it addresses is the dependence on ad-supported or single-source music clients. Nuclear instead presents a local player that can find free music, stream it from available sources, and organize listening through favorites, queues, playlists, artist pages, and album pages. Streaming sources, metadata, playlists, and dashboard content are driven by plugins, so users can extend the player through the built-in plugin store or the @nuclearplayer/plugin-sdk package.

Key capabilities

• The player can search for music and stream it from any source made available by the application or an installed plugin.
• Artist and album pages provide biographies, discographies, similar artists, and track listings for catalog exploration.
• Queue management supports shuffle, repeat, and drag-and-drop reordering, while favorites can be stored for albums, artists, and tracks.
• Playlists can be created, imported, exported, and imported from various services, allowing users to assemble and move collections.
• An optional MCP server lets an AI agent drive the player over http://127.0.0.1:8800/mcp after the feature is enabled in Settings, Integrations.

Who uses it and how

• Desktop listeners install a platform package from the GitHub Releases page and use Nuclear as a local player for searching, browsing, queuing, and streaming music.
• Users who want broader catalogs install plugins from the built-in plugin store, then search and play music through the sources those plugins provide.
• AI-assisted users enable the MCP server and connect Nuclear to tools such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf.

Getting started

End users download the latest Windows, macOS, or Linux release from the Releases page, using the installer, disk image, AppImage, Debian package, RPM package, or Flatpak format. Developers clone the repository, run pnpm install, and start the application with pnpm dev, using Node.js 22 or newer, pnpm 9 or newer, Rust stable, and platform-specific Tauri dependencies.

When to use it — and when not to

Nuclear is a good fit for users who want a local, open-source, ad-free, and tracking-free music player that can be extended through plugins and controlled by an AI agent through MCP. It is less suitable for users who need a mobile application, because the provided facts describe a desktop application distributed through platform installers. Repository metadata lists zero contributors, seven open issues, and a repository age of zero years, so users should evaluate the current release and plugin ecosystem before depending on it.

claude mcp add nuclear --transport http http://127.0.0.1:8800/mcp

codex mcp add nuclear --url http://127.0.0.1:8800/mcp

{
  "mcp": {
    "nuclear": {
      "type": "remote",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8800/mcp"
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nuclear": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8800/mcp"
    }
  }
}

git clone https://github.com/nukeop/nuclear.git
cd nuclear
pnpm install
pnpm dev

pnpm dev            # Run the player in dev mode
pnpm dev:remote     # Same, but binds Vite to 0.0.0.0 so you can open the remote control UI from other devices on your LAN
pnpm build          # Build all packages
pnpm test           # Run all tests
pnpm lint           # Lint all packages
pnpm type-check     # TypeScript checks
pnpm storybook      # Run Storybook