Help, Your own AI
Use your own AI, if you want to
AI is off until you turn it on, book by book. Choose exactly what it may do, connect the Codex, Claude Code, ChatGPT or Claude you already pay for, and review every suggestion before it touches your writing.
Onwarder does not need AI, and it does not come with any. Everything in it works with AI switched off, which is how every book starts.
If you do use an AI, Onwarder lets you bring your own: the Claude or ChatGPT plan you already pay for, or a free model on your own computer. Onwarder sells no AI credits.
Onwarder never trains AI on your books: not our models, not anyone else’s. When you send words to your own AI provider, their terms apply to what you send.
Choose what AI may do with a book
- In your library, open Settings, then Writing help (AI).
- Under Your books, choose a book.
- Under What AI may do with, followed by the book’s title, pick one:
| Mode | What it means |
|---|---|
| Off | No AI can see this book. This is where every book starts. |
| Read only | Your AI can read this book, answer questions and give second opinions. It can’t suggest changes. |
| Ask first | Your AI can suggest changes. Nothing changes until you accept it. |
| Auto | Your AI updates story notes itself: characters, places, items, factions, notes and scene cards. Changes to your writing always come to you first. |
The first time you choose Auto, Onwarder asks you to confirm with Turn on Auto. If you see Auto isn’t available yet, every suggestion comes to you first until it is.
Each book has its own setting, so you can use AI on one book and keep another entirely private. If books in a series share story notes, the strictest book’s setting applies to those shared notes.
Once a book allows AI, the chip above the page shows its mode, for example AI Ask first. Select it to change the mode or see what has happened.
Review what your AI suggests
Suggestions never go straight into your prose. Select the AI chip above the page and choose Changes and activity.
- Under Waiting for you, each suggestion has Accept, Edit and Decline. For changes to your prose, Review side by side shows yours and theirs together.
- AI activity lists everything that has happened, with Undo where a change can be taken back.
Connect your AI
There are three ways in. Use whichever suits how you already work.
On your computer: Codex or Claude Code
If you use Codex (with a ChatGPT plan) or Claude Code (with a Claude plan) on your Mac or PC, the desktop app can use it directly.
- Install Codex or Claude Code and sign in to it as usual.
- In Onwarder, open Settings, Writing help (AI), then What AI needs on this computer.
- Under AI to use, choose Codex or Claude Code. When it is ready it says Ready. Signed in. If not, it tells you what to do, for example Not on this computer. Install Codex, then check again. Use How to install and Check again.
It runs on your own plan: the setting says Uses your own ChatGPT plan or Uses your own Claude plan.
Use it from your phone or the web too. Turn on Phone and web can use this computer and confirm with Turn on. Your phone and browser can then send AI jobs to this computer. Jobs run only while this computer is awake and Onwarder is running; under Run in the background you can choose Keep working when Onwarder’s windows are closed and Open Onwarder when I log in.
On a phone or in a browser
AI runs on your computer, or in the Claude or ChatGPT app, never in the browser itself. Open Settings, Writing help (AI), then How to use AI here:
- Ask your computer sends the job to a computer you have set up as above. If none is, it says Set up a computer first.
- Use Onwarder in the Claude or ChatGPT app explains the next option.
In the Claude or ChatGPT app
The Claude and ChatGPT apps can read a book that is in your Onwarder Cloud account.
- In Settings, Writing help (AI), open Use Onwarder in the Claude or ChatGPT app and choose Copy address.
- In Claude, add a custom connector with that address and name it Onwarder. In ChatGPT, add it as a connector app in developer mode.
- Sign in to Onwarder when asked, and approve.
Menus in those apps change from time to time. Our guide Connect your AI to your book has the current steps for each, including Claude Code and Codex in a terminal. The connection page in your account, under Connect, lists every app you have connected; choose Revoke to cut one off.
Turning it off
Set the book back to Off. Connected apps lose access straight away. Turning access off stops new reading; it cannot recall words an AI has already read.
A free model on your own computer
You can also run an open AI model on your own computer, with no AI company involved. See Local models.