Questions and answers
Everything people ask about Asten: what it is, whether it uses AI, where your files live, what it checks, how to get it, and who makes it.
The basics
What is Asten?
Asten is a local-first writing app for creative writers: a writing desk plus a rule engine that remembers the facts of your story and marks the moment a draft contradicts them. Asten never writes prose; it only adds marks beside your text. See how it works.
Who makes Asten?
Asten is made by Verne Ltd., a company registered in Dhaka, Bangladesh. You can reach the team at info@vernesystems.com, and there’s more about Verne on this site.
Why is the app called Asten?
Asten is another name for Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of writing, wisdom, the moon, and reckoning, who recorded the verdict at the Weighing of the Heart. The app takes his job, not his authority: it keeps the record of your story and weighs each page against it, and you decide. Read the story behind the name.
Who is Asten for?
Asten is for creative writers who are curious about AI but protective of their voice: novelists, fan-fiction writers, worldbuilders, screenwriters, and game and campaign writers. It also suits AI tinkerers who care that the checks run locally and are deterministic. Start with the pages for novelists, worldbuilders, screenwriters, fan-fiction writers, or AI tinkerers.
Is Asten a word processor?
Asten includes a writing desk: a binder of chapters and scenes, a rich-text editor, comments, find, word counts, a page view, track-change marks, and named snapshots. Asten isn’t a print-layout tool or a full replacement for Word’s review features, so you can compile to .docx when you need Word. What a word processor lacks, and Asten has, is a memory of your canon. See the desk.
Can I write a screenplay in Asten?
Asten can compile your project to Fountain, the plain-text screenplay format, or to Final Draft’s FDX, and import either, and its canon checks work the same way on a script as on a novel. See Asten for screenwriters.
Can I use Asten for non-fiction?
Asten is built for stories: its checks compare facts about characters, places, events, and time. You can still use the desk, binder, snapshots, and compile for any long document, and entities can include sources, but Asten has no research or citation tools.
AI and your words
Does Asten use AI to write my book?
No, Asten never writes prose, and that’s a product principle, not a setting. Asten keeps the record of your story and marks where a draft contradicts it; every sentence in your manuscript is yours. Read Let AI be your editor, not your writer.
Does Asten use AI right now?
Only if you turn it on. The checks run no model: Asten reads names and plain attributes from the page with fixed rules, and its marks are deterministic over those readings and the facts you confirm, so the same manuscript and the same canon always produce the same marks. Release 0.0.1b adds an optional assistant to the desktop app. It is off by default; if you turn it on and choose a provider (a model on your own machine, or a cloud provider with your own key and your consent), it can explain marks, search your canon and propose facts for you to confirm. It never writes or changes your prose. See Asten and AI and the AI policy.
Will Asten add AI features in the future?
The assistant in release 0.0.1b is the first AI feature. The checks themselves still read the page with fixed rules rather than a model, and nothing ever turns a reading into canon by itself. The roadmap’s later step is small local classifiers that read mentions, attributes, time phrases, and speakers and propose facts: nothing becomes canon until you confirm it. The AI policy sets the conditions for any AI feature: local models first, a cloud provider only with your own key and explicit consent, and a complete switch-off. None of this has a date; see the roadmap.
Will my writing be used to train an AI model?
Never: no manuscript written in Asten is used to train any model. The checks send nothing anywhere, and Verne never receives your manuscript. If you turn on the assistant, a request goes only to the provider you chose, with your manuscript’s wording left out unless you pick a passage; that provider’s own terms then apply to what you sent. See the AI policy.
What does the assistant send, and when?
Nothing, until you turn on AI providers, choose one, enter your own key (for a cloud provider), consent to that provider, and press send in the assistant panel. A request then goes from your computer straight to that provider’s address over an encrypted connection (plain HTTP only to a model on your own machine), and nowhere else. It holds your question, the assistant’s fixed instructions, the names of the tools it may use, and what those tools return: a mark’s code and explanation, settled facts, cast entries. Your manuscript’s wording is left out unless you pick a passage to share, and the wording quoted inside a mark is left out unless that mark is attached. You can read the exact request, with your key shown as a placeholder, before it is sent. See the AI policy.
Can the assistant write or change my text?
No. It cannot edit your manuscript: it has ten tools that read or prepare things (explain a mark, search the project, summarise a source, propose a fact for you to confirm) and the tools that would change your text are closed. A request to write, rewrite or continue prose is refused before any provider is contacted, and a reply that reads like new narrative is withheld.
How is Asten different from AI writing tools?
AI story generators are designed to produce prose; Asten is designed never to. Asten remembers what you’ve decided about your story, like Mira’s auburn hair or Captain Oren’s death in chapter 9, and points at the place where a draft disagrees. See the comparison.
Can I use ChatGPT or Claude alongside Asten?
Yes, you can use ChatGPT or Claude alongside Asten; that’s your choice. Asten doesn’t connect to ChatGPT, Claude, or any other AI service, so nothing passes between them unless you copy it across yourself. Asten’s checks work the same way however a draft was written.
Does Asten understand my story?
No, and Asten doesn’t claim to. Asten reads plain attributes from the page (hair, eyes, height, age, where someone is, alive or dead, who is married to whom) with fixed rules, compares them with facts you’ve confirmed such as Mira · hair color · auburn, and notices when they disagree. It doesn’t read for meaning, and it never writes.
Continuity and canon
What is canon in Asten?
Canon in Asten is the set of facts you’ve confirmed about your story. Each fact is an entity, a predicate, and a value, like Mira · hair color · auburn, with a modality and a status, and only confirmed facts produce hard contradictions. See canon.
What continuity errors can Asten catch?
Asten ships fifteen canon rules in seven families.
CANON-E013 marks two values for one attribute, such as auburn and black hair, whether both are confirmed or one is on the page, and also what marks someone placed in two places at once; CANON-E101 marks a character acting after a confirmed death, such as Captain Oren after chapter 9; CANON-E201 to E203 cover story time stepping backward inside a continuous run, dates that cannot all be true, and an effect before its cause; E301 covers a journey that does not fit the time between two scenes; E401 knowledge a character cannot have yet; E501 to E503 genealogy and exclusive relations; E601 rules you write yourself. The catalogue also reserves E302 and E602, which no rule raises yet. See the compiler.Does Asten find contradictions in my prose automatically?
Yes, for plain attributes. Asten reads names, aliases, hair and eye color, height, age, location, alive or dead, and relations from the page with fixed rules, no model, and weighs them against the facts you have confirmed, as warnings. What it reads is used only for that comparison; it is never stored as a fact or turned into canon. Deeper reading, such as a pronoun with no name in the sentence, is not weighed.
How do I silence a warning in Asten?
Any mark in Asten can be suppressed with a reason, and the suppression is stored with your project and knows when its evidence changes. Diction watch is off unless you turn it on; Lifecycle, Clocks, Relations, Knowledge, Atlas, and Invariants are on by default; and the Scribe pack, Asten’s core canon compiler, is always on. A project’s strictness can also be set to quiet, standard, or thorough. Diagnostics only point at your text, so silencing one never changes a word.
What if a contradiction in my story is intentional?
Asten gives you several ways to keep an intentional contradiction. Anything inside quotation marks counts as something a character says, not as world truth; a scene can be marked a dream, vision, or frame story and nothing in it is weighed against the world, while a memory is weighed at the story time you give it; a narrator can be marked unreliable; a fact can be marked contested or deprecated; or you can suppress the single mark with a reason and keep your sentence. The canon is yours; Asten only records it.
Do I have to fill out a story bible before I start writing in Asten?
No, Asten doesn’t ask for a story bible, a character form, or a wiki before you write: the cast isn’t a mandatory character sheet, the world views are optional, and a scene never waits on a wiki. Canon grows from facts you confirm whenever you like; read more on story bibles.
What are craft hints in Asten?
Craft hints in Asten are optional style notes, and they’re never canon errors. Today they come from the Diction watch pack, which notes words like “very” and “really” and is off by default. Asten makes no craft doctrine a default; see method packs.
Does Asten work with flashbacks?
Yes, Asten allows flashbacks: it keeps two clocks, story time and reading order, so a scene can happen early and be told late, and it argues only inside a run of scenes you declared continuous. A flashback is a scene placed earlier in story time, and a memory is weighed at the story time you give it.
CANON-E201 appears only when a continuous run steps backward in story time. See time.Privacy and your files
Where does Asten store my writing?
Asten stores your projects on your own computer, in a SQLite database; with the desktop shell, that’s a file called
asten.db in your system’s application-data folder. Verne never receives your manuscript. See local-first.Do I need an account to use Asten?
No, Asten has no accounts and no sign-in; your projects live on your computer, and using them doesn’t depend on a Verne server.
Does Asten sync my writing to the cloud?
No, Asten has no sync and no cloud storage, so your project stays on your computer unless you copy it somewhere yourself. Collaboration is planned for later, without giving up offline work.
Does Asten collect telemetry or usage data?
No, Asten sends no telemetry or usage data. Your manuscript stays on your computer, and Verne never receives it.
What file formats can Asten export?
Asten compiles to Markdown, plain text, Fountain and Final Draft (.fdx) for screenplays, HTML, .docx, and EPUB 3. For a PDF, compile to HTML and print it. Import reads the same family of formats except EPUB, with a conservative .docx extract.
How do I back up my Asten projects?
Asten keeps your work in an ordinary file on your computer, so you back it up by copying that file, ideally while Asten is closed, to a drive or folder you trust. Inside Asten, named snapshots mark points in your draft and an append-only history records each change. Compiling to Markdown or .docx also gives you a readable copy that doesn’t need Asten at all.
Does the Asten website use cookies?
No, the Asten website sets no cookies, runs no analytics or ads, and self-hosts its fonts. If you toggle light or dark mode, one
localStorage key, asten-theme, remembers the choice in your browser and never leaves it. The site is hosted on Vercel, which processes ordinary request data such as IP address and user agent to serve pages and guard against abuse; see the cookie notice.What does Verne receive when I use Asten?
Verne receives nothing from your Asten desk: there is no account, no sync, and no telemetry, and your manuscript stays on your computer. The optional assistant talks to the provider you chose, never to Verne. If you email info@vernesystems.com, Verne receives your address and message and uses them to reply; there is no mailing list. See the privacy notice.
Getting Asten
Can I download Asten?
Yes. Release 0.0.1b, a pre-alpha, is on the download page for Windows x64 and Linux x64, and a hosted copy runs in your browser in a private sandbox that is deleted after 24 hours. The installers are not signed yet, so your system warns before the first run. macOS comes later.
How much does Asten cost?
Asten has nothing to buy today, and pricing hasn’t been decided. Whatever comes, the local-first promise holds: your files must stay usable without a subscription or a server.
What platforms does Asten run on?
Release 0.0.1b runs as a desktop app on Windows 10 and 11 (x64) and on Linux x86_64 (Ubuntu 22.04 or newer, or another desktop with WebKitGTK 4.1), and as a hosted copy in any modern browser. The same shell is configured for Windows on ARM, macOS 11 or later and Linux aarch64, but those builds still need building and verifying on hardware; macOS comes later. The desktop app keeps your projects on your machine; the hosted copy is a 24-hour sandbox for trying Asten.
Is there a mobile app for Asten?
Not in the stores yet. The desk has a one-column layout for phones and tablets, and installation from your phone's browser requires the Asten on your home computer to be served over HTTPS with a certificate trusted by the phone. Android and iOS apps are built from the same shell and come after the desktop installers are signed.
Is Asten open source?
Yes. Asten is released under the MIT License, and the source is on GitHub. Asten’s rules are deterministic, and the site describes what each one checks; see the compiler.
Does Asten work with Microsoft Word or Google Docs?
Asten works with Word and Google Docs through a Word task pane and a Google Docs sidebar. Both pair once with a six-digit code from the desk, then list your local Asten projects, show the Scales, and can file a selected passage into a local project, talking to Asten’s local API on your computer. They are sideload only and aren’t in the Microsoft or Google stores; see Word and Google Docs.
What’s on the Asten roadmap?
Next on Asten’s roadmap are verified and signed desktop installers, tested Android and iOS shells, and verified ARM builds. Later items include small local perception models that propose facts and never generate text, a graph, maps, and boards, a runtime for third-party packs, and collaboration that keeps offline work. None of it has a date. See the roadmap.
How do I report a bug or security issue in Asten?
To report a bug in Asten, email info@vernesystems.com with what you saw and how to reproduce it. For a security issue, read the security page first, and please keep the details private until Verne has had a chance to respond.
Verne and the company
Who is Verne?
Verne is the company that makes Asten: Verne Ltd., registered in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Verne’s website is vernesystems.com.
How do I contact the Asten team?
You can reach the Asten team at info@vernesystems.com. Verne uses your address and message only to reply, and there is no mailing list. See contact.
Where can I find Asten’s logo and brand guidelines?
Asten’s logo, colors, type, and voice are set out on the brand page. The short version: your words are black ink, and Asten only ever writes in red.
Who do I contact for press inquiries about Asten?
Press inquiries about Asten go to info@vernesystems.com, and the brand page covers the logo and how to use it. When describing Asten, please keep to what exists today: a local-first writing desk with deterministic canon checks, an optional assistant that never writes prose, and a public pre-alpha (release 0.0.1b) with unsigned installers.
Where can I find Verne’s company details?
Verne Ltd., is registered in Dhaka, Bangladesh (company registration C-201411-1), at 8/A, Sher-e-Bangla Road, Zighatola, Dhaka-1209. The full details are on Verne’s company page and this site’s legal page.
Other questions
Write to info@vernesystems.com.