Descript for Raycast
Send files to Descript, browse your projects, run Underlord, and track every job from Raycast, without opening the app.
Import from Finder in one keystroke
The fastest way to get media into Descript. Select files in Finder, trigger Import Selected Media, and hit Enter. Raycast requests the upload URLs, then hands each file off to a detached background upload, so you can dismiss Raycast (or close the window) the instant you submit and the transfer keeps running.
- Drop files into a brand-new project (a "Main" composition is created for your audio/video automatically) or add to an existing project with type-to-search.
- Upload many files at once, in parallel, right from your current Finder selection.
- Watch progress in the menu bar and Recent Jobs, with per-file status, completion, and failures, even after Raycast is gone.
No drag-and-drop, no waiting on a modal, no babysitting the upload.
Everything else
- Import Selected Media: the headline flow above. Finder selection into a new or existing project, with a detached background upload that survives dismissing Raycast.
- Browse Projects: a paginated, searchable list with an inline detail pane (composition and media counts and durations) and a drill-in Contents view that deep-links straight to the Descript web app.
- Run Underlord Prompt: pick a project (and optionally a composition), choose a starter preset or one of your saved favorites, and kick off an Underlord one-shot edit. Save your own prompts for reuse.
- Publish Composition: from Browse Projects or Contents, start a video or audio publish. The share URL shows up in Recent Jobs and the menu bar the moment it's ready (Copy or Open).
- Recent Jobs: live status for imports, Underlord edits, and publishes. Filter by type, paginate without losing in-flight updates, cancel running jobs, and copy share URLs.
- Descript Activity (menu bar): an at-a-glance count of active uploads and in-progress jobs, with quick jumps into each command and a manual Refresh Now.
Setup
You'll need a personal API token from Descript.
- In Descript, open Settings and choose API tokens in the sidebar, then click Create token.
- Give the token a name and select the Drive it should be associated with, then click Create token again.
- Copy the token immediately. Descript shows it once and you can't view it again. If you lose it, generate a new one.
- Treat it like a password (anyone with the token can act as you against Descript). In Raycast, open Extensions, find Descript, and paste the token into Descript API Token.
Your token is stored locally in Raycast's encrypted database and sent directly to https://descriptapi.com over HTTPS as Authorization: Bearer <token>. There's no proxy in between.
How it works
- Detached uploads: Import Selected Media spawns each file's upload as a detached
curl process, so dismissing Raycast doesn't cancel it. Progress is mirrored to per-file status files under the extension's support directory, which the menu bar and Recent Jobs read back. Finished records auto-clear 7 days later (or dismiss them yourself).
- Polling, not webhooks: a desktop client can't reliably accept inbound webhooks, so Recent Jobs polls each in-flight job every few seconds and the menu bar polls the bulk job list. Rate-limit responses are respected (
Retry-After) and retried on the next tick.
- Adaptive menu-bar refresh: Descript Activity only calls the API when something is actually in flight. Otherwise it backs off to a light refresh, keeping steady-state usage minimal.
- Cross-command sync: kicking off any job immediately wakes the menu bar so new work appears without waiting, and Recent Jobs nudges it again on every job-state change so both surfaces stay in step.
- Stale-while-revalidate: lists render instantly from Raycast's cache, then refresh in the background. Project detail loads lazily for the focused row.
- Personal API tokens only: there's no separate login step. The first API call uses your token, and missing or invalid tokens surface a clear Open Extension Preferences action. OAuth is out of scope for v1.
