Local AI, on your terms

Always optional. Always private. Always reviewable.

Never writing for you. Chronal Studio’s built-in local AI reads prose you have already written and proposes information you might want to track. It does not draft scenes, finish sentences, rewrite your voice, or decide what happens next. The creative work and the project’s meaning stay with you.

What it actually does

With local AI enabled, Chronal can analyze blocks of writing and suggest people or places to track, dated facts, knowledge, and changes caused by events. Nearby writing and existing project facts can help it interpret a name or a date. A proposal stays linked to the passage it came from.

For example, you might write:

In 1825, John Baldwin became mayor of Greyhaven.

A possible proposal is John Baldwin → mayor of Greyhaven → from 1825. This is an illustration, not a promise that a model will always read the sentence correctly. The original prose stays unchanged.

1. You write. Your notes, scenes, and research remain ordinary Markdown.
2. Local AI proposes. It identifies possible facts in the text. A passage with nothing useful to track can produce no suggestions.
3. Chronal checks the structure. It validates the proposed data and links it to supporting text. Validation does not prove the interpretation is true.
4. You review. Check the source, the person or place, the proposed value, and the dates. Edit, accept, or dismiss the suggestion.
5. Accepted facts join the project. Only proposals you accept become tracked records available to the timeline, graphs, snapshots, and queries.

An ambiguous sentence can produce a mistaken suggestion. You remain the authority on what belongs in your project. AI does not silently turn an interpretation into a fact.

How it stays local

You download model files to your computer through Chronal’s settings. The model loads and runs on your device; built-in fact extraction does not send your prose, prompts, or model output to an AI provider. Once the required model files are installed, this processing works offline.

Downloading model files requires an internet connection. Updates, optional diagnostic sharing, and feedback are separate from local inference. Optional usage diagnostics exclude project content, names, paths, prompts, query text, and model output. Any feedback you choose to send can contain the details you include. See the AI and telemetry disclosure for release-specific information.

Use Chronal without AI

Leave local AI off and add facts, knowledge, dates, and events with Studio’s own authoring tools. Writing, custom calendars, timelines, graphs, snapshots, saved queries, Findings, and source tracing remain available without a model or an outside agent.

Chronal Engine calculates point-in-time answers from the records you have authored or accepted. Those calculations do not need an AI model. You can use the whole core workflow without downloading one.

Bring your own agent, if you want

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a standard way for an AI agent to use another application’s tools. Chronal can provide a connected agent with Engine-backed operations for reading, questioning, and changing a project, so the agent does not need to guess how Chronal’s files work.

Chronal Settings provides guided setup for Codex and Claude Desktop. Other compatible agents can be configured manually. The connection is optional, can be removed later, and is not required for any core Studio workflow.

A connected outside agent is different from Chronal’s built-in local AI. The agent may use a cloud model and may send project content to its own provider. Review that product’s privacy terms and settings before connecting it.

Command-line access

The command-line interface (CLI) is a separate terminal tool for scripts and advanced automation. Like MCP access, it uses Chronal Engine and is optional.