FAQ

General

What is Foxl?

Foxl is a suite of AI products sharing one account:

• Foxl Desktop - a 24/7 personal AI agent that runs on your Mac, Windows PC or Linux box (and at app.foxl.ai on the web). It can browse the web using your real Chrome sessions, run code, manage files, control smart devices, send messages, and automate recurring tasks. It comes with persistent memory and a library of installable skills.
• Foxl Code - autonomous coding agents that run tasks on your repositories, at code.foxl.ai and inside the Foxl app (web, desktop, iOS and Android) behind the product switcher. It is in private beta: an account that is not yet on the list sees a waitlist notice and no Code settings until access is granted. You are notified when access is granted; questions about access go to support@foxl.ai.
• Foxl Notes - AI meeting transcriber with summaries, also built into the Foxl app.

How is Foxl different from ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a cloud-based chatbot that generates text. Foxl is a local AI agent that takes actions - it controls your real browser with your login sessions, executes shell commands, manages git repositories, schedules tasks, and remembers everything across conversations. ChatGPT talks. Foxl does.

What operating systems are supported?

Five platforms ship on every release:

Neither phone app is in the App Store or Google Play yet - see Mobile Apps. The web app at app.foxl.ai works on any platform with no install.

Pricing and Credits

Is Foxl free?

Yes, and there is no plan to buy. Foxl runs as a free project funded out of pocket for now.

The trade is that foxl.ai does not serve model inference - you supply the model. Three ways: your own provider key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Bedrock), a local model (Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio), or a Claude Pro/Max or ChatGPT Plus/Pro subscription you already pay for. That last one adds no bill at all. See Cost & model access.

How much does Pro cost?

Pro and Ultra are not on sale. There is nothing to upgrade to, and nothing to pay Foxl for.

What happens if something asks foxl.ai for a model?

It is refused with a clear message naming the three options above - 409 hosted_inference_disabled, not a 401, so it does not read as a sign-out or an outage. The model catalog also comes back empty, which is how the app knows to fall through to your own provider. Set one up in Settings > Model & provider.

Can I use my own API keys?

Yes - and this is the normal way to run Foxl. Go to Settings > Model & provider and add your API key for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or Amazon Bedrock, or for an OpenAI-compatible vendor (OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Groq, Z.ai, Together, Mistral, xAI and a dozen more), or point it at Ollama, vLLM or LM Studio for a local model. The key stays on your computer: app.foxl.ai and the phone apps use it through your connected desktop, and the relay itself never accepts a key.

Features

What models does Foxl support?

Whatever your own provider gives you. With BYOK: any model from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or Amazon Bedrock - including Fable 5.1, GLM 5 and Kimi K2.5 on your own AWS account - plus everything an OpenAI-compatible vendor serves: the picker reads each connected provider's live catalogue, so an OpenRouter key offers all of its models, free ones included. Locally: Ollama, vLLM and LM Studio. By subscription: Claude Pro/Max through the claude CLI, ChatGPT Plus/Pro through Codex OAuth, and Gemini CLI.

Opus 5 is the default for Foxl Desktop and for Foxl Code's coding agent when your provider serves it - it matches or beats Fable 5 on agentic coding and professional knowledge work at half the price, with a 1M-token context window, 128K max output, and adaptive thinking on by default. Foxl Notes runs on whatever Settings > Model & provider is pointed at. Reaching Opus 5 means your own Anthropic or Bedrock key, or a Claude subscription; a Kiro or Cursor task uses that vendor's own model choice and shows none.

Foxl's own hosted catalog (Opus 5, Fable 5, Opus 4.8/4.7/4.6, Sonnet 5, Sonnet 4.6, Haiku 4.5, and the GPT-5.6 family) is switched off - see Cost & model access.

What happens when my model is rate limited or down?

By default the turn fails after Foxl's own retries, because retrying asks the same model again. Switch on Automatic fallback in Settings > Model & provider and list the models to try instead, in order - drawn from every provider you have set up, not just the current one. It is off by default because falling back changes which vendor sees the conversation and what the turn costs.

Can Foxl Notes transcribe without sending audio anywhere?

Yes, on an Apple Silicon Mac. Pick On device under Settings > Notes > Recording: speech recognition and speaker labels run on your own GPU after a one-off download of about 1.3 GB, nothing is uploaded or metered, and it keeps working with the network off. Everywhere else, recording goes to Amazon Transcribe on your own AWS account with your desktop signing the connection, or through your desktop to your own Deepgram, AssemblyAI, OpenAI or ElevenLabs key. The AI summary runs on the desktop's Model & provider either way.

Can Foxl access my email?

Yes. Through the Chrome Extension, Foxl uses your real logged-in browser sessions. If you're logged into Gmail or Outlook in Chrome, Foxl can read and interact with your email.

What are skills?

Skills are installable capability packages (SKILL.md files) that teach the agent new abilities - Notion and Obsidian notes, Spotify control, GitHub management, weather lookup, and more. Browse them under Settings > Connect > Integrations > Skills. See Skills.

Can I create custom skills?

Yes. Create a SKILL.md file in ~/.foxl/skills/your-skill/ with YAML frontmatter and markdown instructions. The agent discovers it automatically.

Security and Privacy

Does Foxl store my data on its servers?

Not your desktop data. Conversations, memory and files stay on your machine, and Notes transcripts stay on your device. The relay keeps your account and device records, usage counters, what you post to Channels and DMs, what you share into shared folders, Foxl Code conversations and task history (because a coding task has to outlive the app being closed), and - encrypted at rest - the credentials you give Foxl Code's cloud agents. The full list, and what the relay can read while it forwards, is in the security FAQ.

Is it safe to give Foxl browser access?

Financial sites are blocked by default, all browser actions are visible in real time, and you can configure domain allowlists and blocklists.

Worth knowing before you decide: a new install auto-approves every tool, so shell commands do not prompt until you turn that off in Settings > Safety. That is a deliberate default for a 24/7 agent - the reasoning, and what it costs, is in Security.

Where is my data stored?

On your machine at ~/.foxl/ (macOS/Linux) or %USERPROFILE%\.foxl\ (Windows). You can change this with the FOXL_HOME environment variable. All memory is stored as readable markdown files - no hidden or encrypted data stores.

Desktop and Web App

Can I use Foxl without the desktop app?

Partly. Signing in at app.foxl.ai gives you Foxl Code and the Notes editor, but the Agent needs a model and foxl.ai serves none, so chat works only while your desktop is reachable through the relay - keep it running, or turn on Keep running when closed. The full agent experience (browser, code, files, git, memory, scheduling) is the desktop either way.

Can Foxl Code run on my own computer instead of Remote?

Yes. Turn it on under Settings > Code > This computer on that machine; the clone, the coding CLI, the commit and the pull request then happen there with your own logins, and nothing about the task reaches Foxl's cloud. The free machine Foxl Code otherwise runs on is called Remote (it was "Foxl Cloud" before v0.6.18); "This computer" is your own. See On your computer.

How do I connect the desktop app to the web app?

Sign in with the same Foxl account on both - the desktop is detected automatically, with no pairing code. Manage it under Settings > Connect > Mobile/Web on the desktop. Between a browser or phone and a desktop that have both installed v0.6.27 or later, traffic is encrypted with keys the relay never holds, and the relay stores none of it. The handshake engages per device, so a browser tab, phone app or desktop older than that runs over TLS alone until it updates, and for that session the relay reads everything. What it can read even after the handshake is a short list - the chat message you send, with any images or documents attached to it, notification text, a chat reply while it streams, a file preview's raw bytes - so read Transport security before you route sensitive work through it.

What happens when the desktop app is offline?

The web app shows Desktop Offline and chat waits: foxl.ai does not serve models, so there is no cloud fallback to answer in your desktop's place. Foxl Code and the Notes editor keep working; recording and the Agent resume when the desktop is back.

Troubleshooting

The app won't open on macOS

Right-click the app and select "Open" to bypass Gatekeeper on first launch. Foxl is notarized by Apple.

Credits are not showing up

Sign out and sign back in; they can take a moment to sync after account creation. Model turns are never metered - the balance only matters for Foxl Code work on Remote, which is refused at zero, and for the Notes Foxl Relay engine on the accounts Foxl has enabled for it. The agent itself is never blocked by it.

Chrome Extension is not connecting

Make sure the desktop app is running. Check that the extension is enabled in chrome://extensions. The extension communicates with the desktop agent via WebSocket on localhost.

Need more help?

• Join our Discord community - use /ask for instant AI-powered answers
• Create a private support ticket in the Discord #private-support channel
• Email support@foxl.ai for billing or account questions