Edward
A personal assistant for your terminal that does things: keeps your calendar, reads and drafts email,
tracks bills, reminds you — and removes account numbers, card numbers and passwords before anything
reaches the AI.
Edward runs on your own computer, Windows or Mac. It uses your own ChatGPT account, or your own OpenAI
API key, through the Codex CLI and, if you connect them, your own Google Calendar and Gmail.
There is no Edward server.
Status: developer preview. Windows, and macOS (Intel and Apple silicon). You bring your own ChatGPT
account or OpenAI API key and (for calendar and mail) Google Cloud project; the terminal version also
needs the Codex CLI. Expect rough edges.
See it in two minutes
▶ Watch the two-minute demo with a voice-over and captions (the
picture above is the same video, four times faster). The website
has a short video for each part. Everything shown is made-up demo data.
In the terminal it looks like this:
you › what's on tomorrow, and is anything due this week?
📅 checked calendar 2026-10-03 → 2026-10-03
💳 checked bills
edward › Tomorrow: dentist at 15:00. Your electricity bill ($245.30) is due Sunday.
you › reply to Sam's update and ask whether the energy account is set up
✉ searched mail "Weekly update"
✉ read conversation m2
✉ drafted reply to m2
⚠ Allow gmail_send?
send email to Sam Taylor: RE: Weekly update
[y] yes [n] no
What it does
| |
|---|
| Chat | Answers, web search, image generation, with memory of what you tell it |
| Reminders | "Remind me at 5pm to call the dentist" — a notification, even when Edward is closed |
| Calendar | What's on, when you're free, add / move / delete events (each one confirmed) — across all your Google accounts |
| Gmail | Search, read, summarise; draft replies; send only after you approve the draft — one or several personal Gmail accounts |
| Lists | Shopping list, things to fix at home, to-dos, in Google Tasks so they are on your phone too |
| Voice (desktop app) | Talk to Edward and hear the reply, with your own OpenAI API key |
| Bills | Finds bills in your email, checks them for signs of fraud, reminds you before they are due |
| Daily brief | Today's events, reminders, bills and unread mail in one glance |
| Heads-ups | Before an event with a place or people (and the related emails); a mail summary twice a day; the week ahead on Sunday evening; trips from booking emails, with when to leave |
How it works
Three ways in (the desktop app, the terminal, a background job that runs for a moment every minute) share
one core. The core reaches the AI only through Codex, a process on your own computer, and everything on
that path passes the privacy guard. Calendar, mail and lists come from Google with your own sign-in. There
is no Edward server.
The model only reads and writes text. It can't send an email or change your calendar: it asks for one of
Edward's tools, Edward's own code does the work, and anything that changes something waits for your OK.
What comes back from outside (an email, a calendar entry) is cleaned and passes the guard before the model
sees it. The model itself is your choice: a ChatGPT plan, an OpenAI API key, or another service that speaks
OpenAI's Responses format, such as OpenRouter or Qwen on Alibaba Cloud (experimental).
Privacy guard
Before anything is sent to the model, Edward's own code removes card numbers, bank and account numbers,
passwords, PINs, one-time codes and ID numbers — partial ones too ("card ending 1234"). They are never
stored. This is a filter at the process boundary, not an instruction to the model.
Edward cannot pay anything or sign in to a bank. Sending an email, changing your calendar and marking a
bill paid all need your approval.
What it does not catch, and the rest of the security model, is in SECURITY.md. Read it
before you rely on Edward.
Requirements
- Windows 10 or 11, or macOS 12 or newer (Intel or Apple silicon)
- Node.js 24 or newer (the terminal version; the desktop app brings its own)
- The Codex CLI (
npm install -g @openai/codex) for the terminal version; the desktop app comes with
its own (see The Codex inside the desktop app)
- Either a ChatGPT plan that includes Codex or an OpenAI
API key (billed by OpenAI for what Edward uses; no pictures yet). The desktop app asks which at the first
start, and Settings → Change switches later. Experimental: another AI service instead of OpenAI, with
its address, a model name and your key (OpenRouter, Qwen on Alibaba Cloud, anything that speaks OpenAI's
Responses format); then there is no web search and no pictures
- Optional, for calendar and mail: a Google account and your own free Google Cloud project
(15-minute guide)
Install
Desktop app: download the installer from the
releases and follow the
install steps: Edward-Setup-<version>.exe for
Windows, Edward-<version>-mac-arm64.dmg for a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 and later),
Edward-<version>-mac-x64.dmg for a Mac with an Intel processor (Apple menu → About This Mac says
which). Codex comes inside; there is nothing else to install. Versions up to 0.3.1 had one Mac file for
both and needed Codex installed first.
The Mac app isn't signed with an Apple Developer ID yet, so macOS stops it the first time: open it once,
then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and press Open Anyway.
Terminal version:
npm install -g github:Ruihang2017/project-jarvis
edward setup
edward
edward setup walks through signing in to ChatGPT, background reminders, Google and your region. Every
step can be skipped and it can be run again. edward doctor checks that everything works.
Using it
Just type. Slash commands cover the rest — /help lists them in three groups:
| Conversation | What Edward looks after | Setup and care |
|---|
/new /resume /image /model /effort /usage /mode | /brief /calendar /mail /lists /trips /bills /remind /memory /images | /start /connect /accounts /google /disconnect /background /region /web /data /doctor |
The desktop app
The same Edward in a window: Today, Chat, Calendar, Mail, Bills, Reminders, Memory and Pictures pages,
cards for everything that needs your OK, the permission mode always at the top right, and it keeps
running (tray icon on Windows, Dock on a Mac) so reminders keep coming when the window is closed. It
shares the data folder with the terminal version. To run it from a checkout, or build the installer
(app/dist/Edward-Setup-<version>.exe or app/dist/Edward-<version>-mac.dmg; neither is code-signed
yet, so Windows and macOS warn about an unknown publisher):
cd app
npm install
npm start # build and run
npm run dist # build the Windows installer (on Windows)
npm run dist:mac # build the macOS app for Intel and Apple silicon (on a Mac)
npm run smoke # start the packaged app once, hidden, on made-up data
Every push is tested on Windows, macOS on Apple silicon and macOS on Intel, and the three installers are
built and started once, each on its own kind of machine (.github/workflows/ci.yml). A version tag puts
them in a draft release.
The installed app runs its background reminders with its own executable, so it needs no separate Node.
The Codex inside the desktop app
The installers carry OpenAI's Codex CLI, so a new user installs one thing. It is OpenAI's own release
package for the system, in the version Edward was verified with (app/codex.lock.json), downloaded from
OpenAI's releases when the installer is built and refused
unless its SHA-256 is the one written in that file. Codex's own voice feature is left out (Edward
doesn't use it); nothing else is changed. Its licences are in the app, in resources/codex/licenses.
The app uses that Codex and no other: one you installed yourself is neither used nor touched, and your
sign-in stays where it was. npm run dist fetches it (about 150 MB, once) into app/vendor. A run
from source (npm start) and the terminal version use the Codex on your PATH.
Permission modes
chat (the default) keeps Codex's own shell and file access switched off, so everything the model sees
has passed the privacy guard. manual, semi-auto and auto let Codex run commands and edit files; what
it reads that way is outside the guard. Shift+Tab switches, and the prompt always shows the mode.
Your data
Everything is in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Edward (Windows) or ~/Library/Application Support/Edward (macOS). /data shows what is there, /data backup copies it,
/data export writes it out as readable files, edward delete-data deletes it, and edward uninstall
removes the background task, revokes Google access and offers to delete the data.
Known limitations
- Windows and macOS only (encrypted token storage, background reminders and notifications use each
system's own features). The Mac version is new: it has been run on Apple silicon, and its Intel half
only by the automated tests.
- On a Mac, reminder notifications have no snooze button, and while the app is closed they are labelled
"Script Editor".
- Calendar and mail need your own Google Cloud project.
- Bills are read from the email text; an amount that is only in a PDF attachment is left for you to fill in.
- The privacy guard recognises numbers by context and knows Australian ID formats only — see
SECURITY.md.
- No phone app: reminders appear on the computer Edward runs on.
- Built on Codex's
app-server interface, including its experimental dynamic-tool support. A Codex
update can change it: the desktop app carries the version it was verified with, and for the terminal
version edward doctor reports which one that is.
Development
git clone https://github.com/Ruihang2017/project-jarvis
cd project-jarvis
npm install
npm test # unit tests; no network, no Codex needed
npm run dev # run from source
TypeScript, Node 24, no runtime dependencies. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Edward is an independent project. It is not affiliated with OpenAI, Google, or Marvel.
