What is Klypix?
Klypix is a portable project workspace with a shared brain. A project, such as a kitchen renovation or the Atlas mobile app, keeps its files, notes, links and the reasons behind its decisions in one place that people and supported AI tools can read.
It has three main parts:
- Klypix for Windows. The desktop app, where you build and inspect a project on a canvas. The canvas is the place to see and correct what the project holds: its files, how they relate, what was decided and what is still open. Download for Windows.
- Klypix for iPhone. Shares a photo, file, link or text from any app into your own canvas. It is on the App Store.
- klypix-mcp. The free engine that connects supported coding tools to a project brain over the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It includes the file-format parser, the MCP server and its hooks, is licensed under Apache-2.0, and works without the Windows app. The Windows app itself is proprietary. Source on GitHub.
What can Klypix save?
Klypix saves a project’s actual files, folders, notes, images and links inside one .klypix file on your PC, along with what you share from your iPhone. A .klypix file is a plain ZIP you can unzip and read: a manifest, a canvas.json file with the layout and connections, one JSON file per card, and an assets folder holding the embedded files.
| Capability | What it does | Limits or where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Drag-and-drop import | Drag files onto the canvas and they become cards with real previews: a PDF’s first page, a Word document’s text, a spreadsheet grid, a video poster frame or an audio waveform. Pasting from the clipboard works the same way. | Other formats land as a plain file card without a preview. Windows app. |
| Whole-folder import | Drop a whole folder, subfolders and all, and it becomes one folder card showing its complete directory tree. By default, a folder up to 200 MB is embedded in the project, and a larger one stays on disk as a linked card. | An embedded folder card holds up to 1 GB, with at most 200 MB per file; larger files are skipped and listed on the card. A linked card’s files stay on your PC and do not travel with the project. |
| Actual file bytes, not shortcuts | Dropped files, images and embedded folders are copied byte for byte into the .klypix file, so the project keeps working if the originals are moved, renamed or deleted. | Folders over 200 MB are linked by default, and a pasted file over 500 MB becomes a link to the original. The same file dropped twice is stored twice. |
| Nested folders | Inside an embedded folder card, create subfolders at any depth, move files and whole subtrees by dragging or with Move to folder, rename the folder or a file, and delete files or entire folders after a confirm step. | Subfolders cannot be renamed yet. A linked folder card is read-only in the canvas. Folder cards hold files, not notes. Undo does not bring back a file deleted from a folder card. |
| Notes | Notes are text cards stored as plain, readable JSON. You and supported AI tools can create and edit them. | Notes cannot be filed inside folder cards. |
| Images | Images are embedded as real bytes and drawn from smaller copies when you zoom out, so large boards stay responsive. | Windows app. |
Links and [[wikilinks]] | Save web links as link cards, link one canvas to another, and type [[wikilinks]] in a note, with autocomplete, to draw an edge to the card it names. | A saved link stays a link card until you ask Klypix to read it. Wikilink edges are drawn from the note’s text, not stored as separate connections. |
| iPhone share extension | Share a photo, file, link or text from any app on your iPhone to your own canvas. It is encrypted on the phone before it leaves. | iPhone only. An item lands on the canvas when Klypix is running on your PC; until then it waits in the cloud and you can open it at drive.klypix.com. |
| Clipboard history | Everything you copy is kept in a searchable history that survives restarts, with pinning and a retention limit. | Stored unencrypted on your PC, and filtering of password-manager copies is best effort, so treat it as a convenience, not a place for secrets. Optional clipboard sync, off unless you turn it on, sends pinned items only. |
Step-by-step guides: save links and files to a project, put local folders on a canvas and send from your iPhone to a Windows project.
What does Klypix show you?
Klypix shows a project as a canvas you can inspect and correct: how cards relate, what was decided, what is still open, and who or what recorded each piece. The same project can be opened read-only in a browser when you share it.
| Capability | What it does | Limits or where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Arrows with typed relationships | An arrow can carry one of eight relationships: leads to, depends on, relates to, conflicts with, supports, questions, costs or blocks. The relationship sets the arrow’s colour and icon, the arrow can carry a label, and it records whether a person or an agent drew it. | The set of eight is fixed. Windows app; klypix-mcp can read connections and propose new ones. |
| Containers | Titled containers group related cards into areas. You can collapse a top-level container to its header, and when you zoom far out, groups too small to read are drawn as dots. | Collapsing is your choice and applies to top-level containers only. Windows app. |
| Decisions and open questions | In a project brain, supported AI tools record decisions, open questions, milestones and reusable skills with a small set of markers, and the Windows app lists unresolved questions in a dedicated triage view. | These are conventions in the card’s text, not separate card types. |
| Evidence and who wrote it | In a project brain, select a card and open Who wrote it to see its recorded source references, the tool that wrote it, its capture date and any verification instructions. | A recorded source is not proof that a decision is correct, and the app does not recheck the files. |
| Brain lenses | The Windows app draws a project brain as a spatial map with health, freshness and provenance lenses. | Windows app. |
| Web canvas viewer | Share a canvas and anyone with the link can open it in a browser with no account and no install, pan and zoom around it, and download the file if the viewer cannot display it. | Read-only. See where each part runs for what sharing sends to the cloud. |
| Klypix Drive | drive.klypix.com is a signed-in web home that shows your storage use, your paired devices, the canvases you have shared and made available to your phone, and the items your phone sent. | It is not general cloud storage: there is no upload from the web. Canvas names in the list are not encrypted. |
To share a project together with the reasoning behind it, see share a project with its explanation.
What can Klypix read?
Klypix can read your own files on your PC, the documents you already have open, public video links you ask it to read, and, with your permission, your screen. Ask your files answers on your PC; open-document questions, screen understanding and Read contents use a cloud AI model.
| Capability | What it does | Limits or where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Ask your files | Point Klypix at any folder. It indexes the folder in the background, keeps up as files change, and answers questions with a model that runs on your PC. Each answer cites the files it came from, with the page, sheet or slide where the file has one, and you can click through to the source. | On your PC. The answer model (1.9 GB on capable machines, 945 MB on lighter ones) and its supporting models are one-time downloads that need an internet connection. Once they are downloaded, asking your files works offline. Without a model you still get the matching passages. |
| Supported document types | PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, text, Markdown and code: around 40 file types. | Text inside images is read only when OCR is on. Email files, EPUB e-books and Apple iWork files are not indexed. |
| Scanned documents and OCR | Turn on OCR and Ask your files reads scanned PDFs and images too, using Windows’ built-in text recognition on your PC. | OCR is off by default. Only the first 10 pages of a scanned PDF are read. |
| Arabic documents | Arabic works throughout Ask your files: searching, reading scanned Arabic pages and answering in Arabic, on your PC. | Arabic answers take longer than English ones on the same hardware. |
| Open documents and Deep Mode | Klypix can see the Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and PDFs you already have open and answer questions about them without you uploading a file. Deep Mode lets you pick several open documents and ask across all of them. | Answers come from a cloud AI model. Reading relies on Windows automation, so not every app or file type works. Password-protected PDFs ask for the password. |
| Alt+Space overlay | Press Alt+Space anywhere in Windows and Klypix opens over what you are doing, already aware of the window you were in. You can change the shortcut. | Works while the app is running. Chat answers come from a cloud AI model. |
| Screen understanding | Klypix can capture your screen on your PC and, when you use a screen-aware feature, send it to a cloud AI model, but only after you allow that. The Windows Snipping Tool is also wired in for manual snips. | Off until you allow it, and you can revoke it at any time. Screenshots are relayed through Klypix’s servers to the AI provider, so this needs you to be signed in. Agent mode follows the same permission. |
| Read contents (public videos) | Right-click a public video link and choose Read contents. For Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, once you allow its helper, Klypix downloads the public video to your PC and a cloud model turns it into timestamped text. A YouTube link is read by the cloud model from the link itself. | Public posts only; your accounts are never used. Nothing is read until you ask. Long videos over the size budget get a labelled partial read. The consent screen notes that downloading may be against a platform’s terms. |
Obsidian .canvas files | Open an Obsidian .canvas file directly with File → Open. The original is not changed; the first save writes a new .klypix file beside it. | Files the .canvas refers to are not pulled in; they become text placeholders. Connections that cannot be resolved are dropped. |
What can Klypix pass to AI tools?
Klypix passes a project’s current understanding to supported coding tools through klypix-mcp, and inside the Windows app it can send your requests to a cloud AI model. The brain is one file, brain.klypix, that people and supported tools read and update.
| Capability | What it does | Limits or where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| klypix-mcp engine | Connects supported coding tools to a project brain over MCP. One command, npx klypix-mcp install, run inside a project, gives it a brain.klypix file if it has none and writes MCP configuration and rules files for the editors it detects on that machine. | Runs locally and works without the Windows app. Context supplied to a cloud coding agent can reach that agent’s provider. |
| Supported coding tools | Claude Code gets MCP tools plus lifecycle hooks: a brief at session start, task-matched context on each prompt and automatic capture of marked decisions. Codex gets MCP tools and the brain_sync gateway, with optional hooks. Cursor, Cline, VS Code / Copilot, Gemini CLI and Antigravity get project MCP configuration and an always-on rules file. Windsurf uses its global MCP configuration plus project rules, Aider gets rules and a command-line path, and Claude Desktop needs a one-time manual configuration edit. | Integration depth varies by tool. Outside Claude Code, retrieval and capture mostly depend on the tool choosing to call the brain. Codex’s optional hooks add context on each prompt but do not capture decisions. |
brain_sync, presence and overlap warnings | One brain_sync call returns a short, task-relevant summary of the brain, the other connected sessions on the same machine, and any exact files they said they would touch that overlap yours. Sessions can also leave each other one-time notes with brain_message. | Same OS user on the same machine. Overlap matching uses the exact file paths each session declares, and the warning is advisory: nothing blocks an edit. Notes expire after 24 hours. |
brain_challenge | Propose a decision and the brain answers with receipts: earlier decisions that contradict it, standing rules that dispute it, and approaches that were tried and reversed. | An empty result means no contradiction signal was found, not that the proposal is correct. |
| Corrections and supersession | An explicit correction supersedes the old decision. The old card is kept, archived with an arrow and a date, and later answers show the correction instead of the outdated decision. | Corrections are not detected automatically; they need an explicit correction or connection. brain_reconcile only proposes candidates for a person to confirm. |
| Brain Sync between teammates’ PCs | Share a project brain once from the Windows app and invite teammates. While Klypix for Windows has that brain open, each copy syncs through an encrypted cloud copy when the brain is opened, when an agent writes to it, when you come back to the window, or when you press the sync button. A dot on that button shows whether the copy is in sync. | Needs sign-in and a cloud share. It syncs on those events, not continuously, and not while Klypix is closed. Live sessions and overlap warnings stay on each machine. Two PCs syncing at the same moment can still revert an edit. Every PC should run Klypix 1.3.171 or later. |
| The brain in Git | Commit brain.klypix with your code. With the klypix merge driver registered on each machine, a pull merges both sides’ cards instead of stopping at a binary conflict. | Registration is per machine; a clone without it gets a normal conflict. Git shows the brain as a binary file, so review card changes with npx klypix-mcp diff. |
| Markdown and JSON Canvas export | Export any saved canvas to Markdown, with its embedded files extracted beside it, or to JSON Canvas 1.0, the open format Obsidian’s canvas uses. Markdown export brings the whole board back out as plain text and real files. | Not a lossless round trip: some card types have no JSON Canvas equivalent, and matching each card to its file is best effort. |
| Agent mode with your own key | In the Windows app, switch on Agent mode and Klypix can carry out multi-step tasks with about 30 tools: reading and writing files, running commands, driving the browser and generating documents. It asks permission before anything consequential. | It runs only when you switch it on. Commands and file changes act on your real PC after you allow them; only its separate sandbox tools run in a Linux sandbox. With your own API key, requests go straight to that provider. |
| Document generation | Ask for a document in chat or Agent mode and Klypix can generate a Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF file. | Uses a cloud AI model. |
For a coding-team walkthrough, see shared project memory for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor and the klypix-mcp setup documentation.
Where does each part run?
Your workspace, your project files and Ask your files run on your PC; chat, screen understanding, Read contents, document generation, Agent mode and sharing use the cloud, and only when you use them. Screenshots are sent only after you allow it.
| Part | Where it runs | What leaves your PC or phone |
|---|---|---|
Workspace, canvas and .klypix files | On your PC. | Your .klypix files are stored on your PC. Their content leaves only if you share that canvas or use a cloud AI feature on it. |
| Ask your files | On your PC, after a one-time model download. | Your documents, your question and the matching passages are not sent to a server. |
| klypix-mcp, presence and overlap warnings | On your PC. | The brain file stays in your project. A cloud coding agent’s provider can receive the context that agent is given. |
| Chat, the Alt+Space overlay, open-document questions, document generation and Agent mode | A cloud AI model. | Your request and the content you include. With your own key it goes straight to that provider; without one, signed-in users can use Klypix’s included AI within the allowance their plan includes. When you are signed in, each finished Agent mode run’s model, token counts and estimated cost are recorded against your account. |
| Screen understanding | A cloud AI model, after you allow it. | Screenshots, relayed through Klypix’s servers to the AI provider. |
| Read contents | For Instagram, TikTok and Facebook your PC downloads the public video, then a cloud AI model reads it. YouTube is read from its link. | The video, or the YouTube link. |
| Sharing, the web viewer and Brain Sync | Klypix’s cloud. | The canvas file, encrypted on your PC with AES-256-GCM before upload. The canvas title and the live edit stream used for collaboration are not encrypted, and for people you invite by email Klypix holds that canvas’s key. |
| iPhone sends and Klypix Drive | Klypix’s cloud, where your PC collects them. The privacy policy explains how long items are kept. | Each item, encrypted on the phone before upload, plus the routing details needed to deliver it and keyed word fingerprints that let you search from the phone without the server reading the words. |
| Clipboard history | On your PC, unencrypted. | Only pinned items, and only if you turn on clipboard sync. Synced items are stored in readable form. |
The privacy policy lists everything Klypix records, including account and device records.
What does it cost?
Everything that runs on your PC is free on every plan: the workspace, the Alt+Space overlay, Ask your files, Deep Mode, the shared project brain, and Agent mode and document generation with your own AI key. klypix-mcp is free and open source under Apache-2.0.
What differs between plans is the cloud storage allowance shown in Klypix Drive and the included AI allowance, the AI that Klypix pays for. The AI allowance is enforced on Klypix’s servers, and bringing your own API key removes it, except for screen understanding, which always goes through Klypix and counts toward it. For current plans, allowances and beta terms, see pricing.
What is Klypix not?
Klypix is not an agent launcher, agent runtime, model router, Git replacement, file manager, cloud drive, chatbot or notes app.
- It does not launch, run, route or supervise your coding agents. You start Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or another supported tool yourself, and each one reads and updates the shared brain. Agent mode in the Windows app is a separate, optional feature that works on your PC with your permission.
- It does not replace Git. Git keeps versioning your code, and
brain.klypixis one more file in the repository. - It is not a cloud drive. Klypix Drive shows what you shared and what your phone sent. There is no upload from the web, and a project is stored on your PC unless you share it.
- It is not a file manager. Folder cards keep a project’s files with the project; they do not manage your whole disk.
- It does not prevent conflicts. It warns when declared work overlaps, and people decide what to do.
- There is no Mac or Android app. The desktop app runs on Windows, and the phone app is for iPhone.
What are the limits?
The main limits are size caps on embedded folders, a first download for local AI, coordination that stays on one machine, sharing that is not end-to-end encrypted as a whole, and phone items that wait for your PC.
- Size caps. An embedded folder card holds up to 1 GB, with at most 200 MB per file; by default, larger folders stay on disk as linked cards. There is no tested maximum size for a whole canvas.
- Folder and undo gaps. Subfolders inside a folder card cannot be renamed yet. Undo covers up to 100 steps in the current session, and a
.klypixfile keeps no version history of its own. - Local AI needs a first download. The installer includes CPU support only; the models and GPU support download when you turn the feature on. OCR is off by default and reads only the first 10 pages of a scanned PDF. Citations name the passages used, not the source of each sentence.
- Cloud features need a connection. Chat, screen understanding, Read contents, document generation and Agent mode use a cloud AI model.
- Coordination is local and advisory. Presence and overlap warnings cover sessions for the same OS user on the same machine and rely on the files each session declares. Brain Sync shares the brain, not live sessions.
- Brain Sync is event-based. It syncs only while the Windows app has that brain open, and two PCs syncing at the same moment can revert an edit.
- Sharing is not end-to-end encrypted as a whole. The canvas file is encrypted before upload, but the title and the live edit stream are readable to Klypix, Klypix holds the key for canvases shared by email invitation, and the live channel is not yet limited to members.
- Phone items wait for your PC. They land on the canvas when Klypix is running on your PC, not instantly.
- A brain starts with what you capture. A new project brain holds only what you and your tools record.