Crux

Crux is a desktop AI assistant built by Crux (the company) that operates across your local files, running applications, and messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord. The documented workflow shows it accepting a plain-language request, then sequencing tool calls — reading CSVs, executing Python scripts, writing markdown reports, editing source files — and surfacing every change for review before committing. Nothing in that loop requires a cloud upload; the vendor states your chats, files, and context remain local to your machine.

The differentiating feature is the overlay layer: a floating interface summoned by a keyboard shortcut (Cmd+Shift+Space on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+Space on Windows) that sits above every open application. The page shows it reading a live app’s UI, answering ‘where is the dark mode toggle?’ by circling the element on screen, and making UI edits to a running web project on request. This screen-awareness is what separates it from a local LLM wrapper that only touches files you explicitly drag in.

Crux fits individuals or small teams who want a local agent for personal productivity — financial tracking, code maintenance, trip planning, study notes — and who treat data privacy as a non-negotiable constraint. It does not expose an API, so it cannot be embedded in a pipeline or called programmatically by another service. Both the Mac and Windows builds carry a beta designation, which the vendor communicates directly on the download page. Teams that need multi-user shared context, server-side scheduling, or integration into existing CI/CD tooling will reach that ceiling quickly.