How we work

Approach

Nothing here is complicated. It is mostly a matter of making deliberate choices at setup rather than accepting whatever the defaults happen to be.

The first decision

Local, cloud, or both

This is the choice that shapes everything else — cost, capability, and where your data ends up. It is worth ten minutes of thought before anything gets installed.

Local AI

Models running on hardware you own.

Nothing leaves your machine, there is no per-message cost, and it keeps working if a provider changes their terms. The trade-off is that you need hardware capable of running it, and smaller local models are less capable than the big cloud ones.

Cloud models with custom agents

The strongest available models, with agents built around your work.

You get considerably more capable models with no hardware to buy or maintain, and we build the agents and workflows on top. You pay per use, and your prompts go to the provider — so we are deliberate about what gets sent.

A mix is common — something local for anything you would rather keep in-house, a cloud model for the work that needs more capability.

Part of every setup

What we think about

None of this is exotic. It is the difference between something you can reason about later and something you inherited by accident.

Costs

Spending limits set at the provider: Configured where they are actually enforced, not just in a config file, so a runaway process cannot quietly bill you.
A realistic monthly number up front: Worked out before you commit, based on how you would actually use it.

Access

Only what the work needs: Connected to the accounts and folders required for the job you asked for, rather than everything on the machine.
Confirmation on things you cannot undo: Sending, publishing, deleting and spending ask you first by default.
A written summary of what it can reach: So you are not guessing later about what it has access to.

Keeping it working

Backed up before we start: Your machine is snapshotted before anything is installed.
Updates handled deliberately: Tested before they land rather than applied automatically overnight.
An off switch you have actually used: Shown to you during the handoff, not just described.

One firm rule

We do not hold your passwords.

You type your own credentials, on your own machine, while we are on a call — or you share them through your password manager and revoke access afterwards. We will never ask you to email or message us a password, an API key, or account details, and you should be wary of anyone who does.

Straight answers

What we will not claim

These tools get things wrong. They misread instructions and occasionally invent things. That is why anything irreversible asks you first.
This is a young field. The tools change quickly and what is best practice today may not be in six months. We would rather say that than pretend otherwise.
Some things should stay out of it. If you handle medical records, client funds, or anything under a compliance regime, we will tell you which parts to leave alone.
It might not be worth it yet. For some businesses the honest answer is to wait, and we would rather tell you that in the first hour than after an invoice.

Want a look at your setup?

Everything above is part of the $500 setup. If you already have something running and just want a second opinion on it, an hour is usually enough.

Book a strategy session See full pricing