Turn any website into a workflow, a REST API, or an MCP tool your AI assistant can call.
Install · What it does · Connect your AI · Troubleshooting · Security · Report a bug
Writ Desktop is the whole of Writ in an app on your computer. Browsers run on your machine, over your own internet connection, with the sign-ins you already have. Everything it does on your computer is free, with or without an account: builds, recordings, runs, Harvest, monitors, automations and schedules, with no credits and no meter. Your workflows and credentials stay in an encrypted database in your home directory, and nothing leaves the machine unless you link a Writ account, or add your own AI key (those requests go straight from your computer to your AI provider).
Writ Desktop or Writ Cloud? Writ is a cloud service first. Writ Cloud runs the same APIs on Writ's servers and reads the web at scale (a page to Markdown or HTML, a site map, a whole-site harvest), with residential connections and CAPTCHA solving when a site needs them, metered in credits, over REST and an MCP server. Writ Desktop is the optional, free way to run them on your own computer: your own sign-ins, systems only your network reaches, and personal volume. One home connection gets throttled and challenged at volume; that is what Writ Cloud is for.
This repository is the download and issue tracker for the app. Writ Desktop is proprietary and its source is not published here — see
LICENSE. The client SDKs, the MCP bridge and the agent are open source and live in their own repositories — see Open source below.
Get Writ Desktop from usewrit.app/desktop, or take the installer for your platform from the latest release.
| Platform | Versions | Files |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | 11 Big Sur or newer, Apple silicon and Intel | .dmg, signed and notarized |
| Windows | Windows 10 or newer, x64 and ARM64 | .msi / .exe — not yet code-signed, see below |
| Linux | glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04 and equivalents), x64 and arm64 | .deb / .AppImage |
Windows shows a SmartScreen warning. The Windows build is not yet Authenticode-signed, so Windows will say "Windows protected your PC — unknown publisher". Choose More info → Run anyway. This is the honest state of the build, not a step you should get used to skipping: verify the download against
SHA256SUMSbelow before you run it. Signing is coming; until it does, this page will keep saying so.
Every release ships a SHA256SUMS file. On Windows it is the only integrity check
available to you, so it is worth the ten seconds:
shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missingFull instructions, including what the first launch downloads and how to install
without an internet connection, are in docs/INSTALL.md.
The app updates itself. Each update's manifest is signature-checked against a key
compiled into the application before anything is installed, and an update that does not
verify is refused. In Settings → Engine & Data → Updates you can check for updates now or pick
the Update channel (Stable, or Beta for new features earlier, with less testing). You can
turn automatic updates off, or point a managed fleet at an internal feed — see
docs/AUTO_UPDATE.md.
The first screen offers Create a free account or sign in and Continue in local-only mode. Local-only mode needs no account: you record, run and schedule with your own AI key, without sync or the marketplace. You can sign in later from Account. A short setup then asks for your language, what brings you to Writ, and where your runs should happen; it installs the browser Writ uses (Install Chromium), offers Start Writ when I log in, and lets you Connect an AI assistant and Import your logins. You can skip any step and change it later in Settings.
The app has the same doors as Writ Cloud: Create, APIs, Monitors, Harvest and Automations, with Scribe on ⌘J.
Build an API, or record a workflow. Ask Scribe for an API, or drive a real browser inside the app: every click, type, and navigation lands as an editable step. Replay it whenever you like — the same result every time, at zero AI cost, because a replay executes the recorded steps rather than asking a model to re-figure out the page.
Call it like an API. Every workflow is immediately callable three ways from your own code, all on the loopback port with a local API key:
POST /v1/workflows/{id}/run— REST, with start-and-poll or wait-for-result delivery- an OpenAI-compatible base URL per workflow, for anything that already speaks that protocol
POST /mcp— the workflow appears as an MCP tool
The routes are listed on Desktop local API, and the SDKs find a running Writ Desktop by themselves.
Watch a page. Point a monitor at a URL or a selector and get told when it changes. Checks run on a schedule from your own machine, while Writ Desktop is running. Slack, Discord and Telegram alerts are free; email and SMS alerts need a linked Writ account.
Chain it into automations. Trigger on a change, a schedule, a webhook, or another workflow finishing. Send the result to a connector, a file, or the next workflow.
Harvest a site. Point it at a domain and let it collect pages into structured data, including PDFs and scanned documents.
When a run needs you. A run that meets a sign-in, a verification code or a CAPTCHA pauses and asks for you — an alert from your system, and the Needs you page in the app. You finish the step in the live browser and the run goes on. Writ Desktop never solves CAPTCHAs by itself: you solve them.
Bring your own sign-ins. Settings → Import logins → Import from browser reads the sites you are already signed in to in Chrome, Edge or Firefox (up to 50 at a time) and saves them as personas on this computer. It never reads your saved passwords.
Use your own AI key. In Settings → AI Provider, pick OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Google Gemini, OpenRouter, Ollama (local) or a custom OpenAI-compatible server, paste the key and click Test connection. With your own key, Scribe and builds are unlimited; the key is encrypted on your computer and your provider bills you directly. Writ's own AI is available through a linked account and is billed in credits.
Writ Desktop runs a local MCP server, named writ, so an assistant can call your workflows as
tools. The app writes the config for you — open MCP & APIs, tab Endpoints, section MCP
tools, pick your client in 2. Pick a client, and click Add to {client}. Claude Code, Claude
Desktop, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf and VS Code are one-click; anything else that speaks MCP can point at
the same local endpoint (the command under Local command, or http://127.0.0.1:8131/mcp with a
local key from MCP & APIs → API Keys).
Your assistant then gets your recorded workflows as callable tools, running locally, with no key to paste and no page for the model to re-interpret. Setup for every client is on Connect an AI assistant.
Everything you do on this computer stays free on every plan. Three ways let other machines call the APIs on it:
| Way in | What it does | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Your Writ account | A schedule, a published endpoint or an assistant reaches your computer through Writ Cloud, over a connection the app opens outward. No port to open, no public address. Turn on Callable from the cloud per workflow. | Every plan |
| LAN mode | Settings → Engine & Data → Network access → Expose on local network: a phone, a server or another computer calls the engine directly with a local key. | Paid plans |
| Public URL | Start public URL gives this computer a public https address through Cloudflare Tunnel. It changes each time and closes when Writ quits. |
Paid plans |
See Link Desktop to Writ Cloud and Writ Desktop for the details.
| Thing | Where |
|---|---|
| Workflows, runs, results | encrypted SQLite database under ~/.writ |
| Credentials and secrets | OS keyring where available, encrypted vault otherwise |
| The engine | a background process bound to 127.0.0.1 only (unless you turn on LAN mode) |
| Cloud | nothing, unless you link an account |
Settings → General → This machine → Keep everything on this computer goes further: Writ Cloud is then contacted only to sign you in, check your plan and download your own cloud items when you ask. Settings → Engine & Data → Privacy & Data makes an encrypted backup of your data, restores it, and deletes everything.
SECURITY.md is the authoritative statement of what is protected and —
just as importantly — what is not claimed. It is deliberately narrower than most
security pages. Nothing in this README should be read as exceeding it.
Writ Desktop is proprietary. These projects around it are open source:
| Project | What it is |
|---|---|
usewrit/writ-sdks |
Python, TypeScript, Rust, and Go clients for Writ Desktop and Writ Cloud |
writ-mcp |
the MCP connector for Writ Cloud, on npm |
usewrit/writ-agent |
the agent that connects a computer or server you control to your Writ account, with no interface (Writ Desktop is the full app) |
usewrit/writ-plugins |
the Writ plugin for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor and VS Code |
Every open-source component bundled in the app is listed with its full licence text in
THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, which is regenerated from the
dependency graph on every release and also readable inside the app under
Settings → About → Open-source licences.
- Bug or crash → open an issue. Include your version (Settings → About), OS, and what you were doing.
- Security vulnerability → do not open a public issue. Follow
SECURITY.md. - Everything else → support@usewrit.app
Release notes for every version are in CHANGELOG.md.