Asten and AI
Asten does not write prose. Its checks run no model. An optional assistant can use a model you choose, under the conditions this page states.
In short
Asten never generates prose and never trains on manuscripts. Its checks run no model; they are deterministic rules. The optional assistant in release 0.0.1b explains marks, searches your canon and proposes facts with cited evidence for you to confirm; it runs a model locally where you have one, uses your own provider and key otherwise, only with your consent, and can be switched off entirely.
What an editor does, and what a writer does.
A good editor remembers what you said on page 40, notices when page 312 forgets it, and asks a pointed question. They don’t take the pen. That is the job Asten wants.
Language models are genuinely good at parts of that job: finding names, comparing claims, summarizing evidence. They are also prone to smoothing every voice toward the same average, and to stating guesses with confidence. A tool that writes for you inherits both. A tool that only proposes, with evidence, and lets you decide, inherits only the first.
Ancient Egyptian scribes kept two inks: black for the text, red to mark it. Thoth, the god of writing for whom Asten is named, recorded the verdict at the weighing of the heart without deciding it. Asten takes the same role: it records and points, and the author decides.
No model runs inside the checks.
Every mark comes from a deterministic rule with a stable code. The same project produces the same marks, and no network is involved.
Deterministic
Rules you can read and test, from CANON-E013 to CANON-E601, and perception that is dictionaries and cues, not a model.
Offline by default
Everything runs on your machine. The only things that leave it are a request you send from the assistant to a provider you chose and consented to, and the update check when you press it.
Explainable
Every mark points to evidence: the settled fact and the page that disagrees.
The conditions every AI feature meets
These commitments were written down before the features existed, so they shaped the features rather than the other way round.
Editor, never writer
No feature will generate, continue, rewrite, or autocomplete your prose. This applies to every feature, including experimental ones.
Proposals only
AI may propose a fact, a link, or an explanation. Nothing it suggests becomes canon until you confirm it.
Evidence attached
Every proposal cites the sentence it came from, so you can check it.
Local first
Where a model is practical on your own machine, that is the default.
Your provider and key
If you choose a cloud model, you choose the provider, you hold the key (kept in your operating system’s credential store, never in the page), and you consent to that provider before anything is sent.
You can read the request
Before a request leaves, Asten shows it exactly as the provider will receive it, with your key replaced by a placeholder. Your manuscript’s wording is left out unless you pick a passage.
A full switch-off
AI features can be switched off completely. Asten remains a full desk and a full compiler without them.
No training on manuscripts
Your manuscript is never used to train any model, by Verne or anyone Verne works with.
About AI and Asten
Does Asten use AI?
Why would a writing app refuse to write?
Can I use ChatGPT or Claude with Asten?
Does the assistant cost money?
Keep reading
Try the pre-alpha
Open the workbench in your browser on a sample novel, or download release 0.0.1b for Windows or Linux.