Red Pen for Ableton

A review-notes layer for Ableton Live - the WP Red Pen concept ported to Live's official JavaScript/TypeScript extension system. Leave typed notes on clips, tracks, scenes, and arrangement selections; revisit them as a per-project queue.

Built with @ableton-extensions/sdk. Dev credit: Lincoln Tracy.

Status

Feature-complete at v0.9.3, verified in Live 12.4.5b6 (2026-07-09); awaiting the public release of Live's Extensions SDK. Right-click "Red Pen" on clips/tracks/scenes/slots/arrangement selections opens the full board (types, priorities, replies, resolve/reopen/delete); the board stays open across actions via a commit-and-reopen loop. Open time-anchored notes mirror as native RP: locators in the arrangement (they travel with the .als). Notes are scoped per Live Set via a lazy RP#<id> marker locator at beat 0.

Storage: environment.storageDirectory (the sanctioned location) when supplied - by Live for a packaged install, or by the --storage-directory flag npm start passes in dev (pointed at ~/.red-pen-ableton for continuity). A packaged install migrates the legacy home-dir notes.json in on first run.

Next: HTTP push to Red Pen Hub (surface:ableton), audio-snip attachments via renderPreFxAudio, resolve-from-context-menu.

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 24.14.1 (building bundles works on 22; running in Live needs 24).
• The Ableton Live Beta build with Extensions support (from Centercode).
• Live: Preferences -> Extensions -> enable Developer Mode.
• Set EXTENSION_HOST_PATH in .env to this machine's ExtensionHostNodeModule.node.

Scripts

npm start                  # build (dev) + run in Live's Extension Host
npm run build              # production bundle of src/extension.ts
npm run build:dev          # dev bundle (sourcemaps, not minified)
npm run package            # production build + create a .ablx archive

Learn

Ableton Extensions SDK docs: https://ableton.github.io/extensions-sdk/