# The AI assistant — reads freely, changes only with your OK

> An optional assistant with your own provider key: it reads, searches and diffs on its own; every change is a proposal you confirm and can undo. Rename, MCP.

- Canonical: https://cwdio.com/features/ai-assistant/
- Updated: 2026-08-15
- Product: Cwdio File Manager (cwdio) — https://cwdio.com

The assistant is optional, off until you give it a key, and built around one rule: **it may read anything
you could read, but it changes nothing you have not confirmed** — and whatever it changes goes through the
same queue, Recycle Bin and <kbd>Ctrl+Z</kbd> as your own hands.

## What it does

- **Chat with tools.** In the AI panel (<kbd>Ctrl+Alt+B</kbd>) the assistant can list folders, read files,
  search names, grep contents, stat, size a tree, find duplicates, checksum, diff two files, show git
  status/log/diff, and navigate, reveal or select in the panels — all on its own. Moving, copying,
  renaming, deleting, writing, packing, extracting and git staging/committing/stashing/branching each become
  a **proposal** with a confirm button; approved, they run through the queue with undo.
- **AI Rename.** From the bulk-rename tool, suggestions built from each file's content head, EXIF date and
  camera, or audio tags — into the same diff table you review and apply, extension preserved, collisions
  flagged.
- **Organise.** **Tools ▸ AI: Organize selection into folders…** proposes named subfolders for a selection
  as a review table; **Preview as folders** shows the plan as a browsable folder tree in a panel before you
  apply it; applying is ordinary queued moves you can undo.
- **Explain this folder.** **Tools ▸ Explain / ask about this folder…** gives a short overview and answers
  follow-up questions from the folder's listing, size and git status.
- **Where did it go?** The Flight Recorder's *Ask the recorder* narrates cwdio's own operation log — "Tax
  2025 was moved from Desktop into D:\Archive yesterday at 14:12" — reading no file content and changing
  nothing.
- **A second opinion before deleting.** The delete confirmation shows a low/medium/high risk note from a
  glance at what the files appear to be; it never changes what the dialog does.
- **Sweep with hints.** **Tools ▸ Sweep: triage this folder…** steps through files one at a time with
  single-key verdicts (works with no AI at all); with a provider, likely junk and likely destinations are
  highlighted — advisory, the keystroke still decides.
- **Semantic search.** With an embedding model configured, the search overlay gains a *Semantic* mode over a
  per-folder index built on your machine.
- **MCP, both directions.** cwdio is an MCP **server** for the agent in its own terminal and an MCP
  **client** for external tool servers you add.

## How to use it

1. Open the AI panel (<kbd>Ctrl+Alt+B</kbd>), enter your provider's base URL, model and key, and test the
   connection. The key goes into an OS-encrypted vault; the URL and model into settings.
2. Ask. "What is taking space here?", "find the invoice from March", "rename these photos by date". Watch
   the tool activity stream; approve or decline each proposal.
3. For a terminal agent: **Tools ▸ Connect Claude Code to this window** writes a `cwdio` entry into the
   folder's `.mcp.json` that survives restarts; the agent then drives this window, and a global confirm
   dialog (with a per-session *trust* option) gates every mutation.

## How it stays safe

- File bytes a read tool fetches never leave the host process — they feed the model request directly.
  Only small results and proposals reach the interface. Content is passed to the model inside a delimited
  untrusted-data block, so a file's text is data, not instructions.
- Every mutation is dispatched in exactly one place, which serves the chat agent and the MCP agent alike, so
  a proposal can never bypass the confirm step or the queue.
- The MCP server binds to loopback with a per-window 256-bit bearer token injected only into local terminals
  — an SSH terminal gets nothing.

## What it deliberately does not do

- No shell tool, no code execution, no network fetch tool. The assistant works with files and git.
- No bundled model and no cwdio-side account: the intelligence is your provider's, local or cloud, and the
  bill is theirs.
- The assistant does not run unprompted. Nothing indexes, classifies or "tidies" in the background; each
  feature starts when you start it.

## Related

- [Bulk rename](/features/bulk-rename/) — where AI Rename's suggestions land.
- [Search](/features/search/) — the Semantic mode.
- [Undo and the safety net](/features/undo-and-safety-net/) — what every AI change runs through.

## Frequently asked questions

**Do I need an account or a subscription with cwdio to use the AI?** No. You bring the key for a provider you already use — any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, including a fully local Ollama or LM Studio — and cwdio stores it on your machine under OS encryption. Without a key every AI surface is simply absent and the rest of the app is unchanged. cwdio itself never proxies your requests or sees your key.

**Can the assistant delete or move my files on its own?** No. Read tools (list, read, search, grep, stat, sizes, diffs, git status and log) run in the background. Anything that changes a file — move, copy, rename, delete, write, pack, extract, git stage or commit — arrives as a proposal you confirm, and then executes through the ordinary operation queue: journaled, Recycle Bin for deletes, Ctrl+Z to undo. There is no shell or execute tool at all.

**What can it do beyond chat?** AI Rename suggests names from a file's content and metadata into the bulk-rename table for review; Organise groups a selection into named subfolders you can preview as real folders before applying; Explain this folder answers questions about a folder; the Flight Recorder narrates cwdio's own operation log (where did that file go?); a deletion-risk note appears in the delete confirmation; Sweep triage highlights likely junk; and semantic search finds files by meaning.

**What is MCP here?** Two things. As an MCP server, cwdio exposes its file tools over loopback to an agent running in its embedded terminal — Tools ▸ Connect Claude Code to this window — so the agent can navigate, read and, with your per-call confirmation, change files through the same queue. As an MCP client, cwdio can connect to external stdio MCP servers and let its own assistant use their tools, again with confirmation for anything that mutates.