Getting Started

Download

Which file do I download?

• macOS: Download the .dmg file. Choose aarch64 for newer Macs (M1/M2/M3/M4) or x64 for older Intel Macs.
• Windows: Download the .exe installer. (IT departments may prefer the .msi.)
• Linux: Download .deb for Ubuntu/Debian, .rpm for Fedora/Red Hat, or .AppImage to run on any distribution.

Configure an AI Provider

Insight supports 25+ chat providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, and local servers like Ollama and llama.cpp). Pick one in Settings and add an API key where required to get started. This works well on any computer.

Your documents are always processed and stored locally—only your questions and the AI’s answers go through the provider.

You don’t need the biggest model. Smaller models like GPT-5 mini or Claude Haiku work well with Insight’s agent—they’re faster, cheaper, and handle document research tasks effectively. The agent harness does the heavy lifting of breaking down queries and gathering evidence, so even lightweight models produce good results.

Create a Collection

Collections are folders for organizing your documents. You might create one for each investigation or story you’re working on.

1. Click New Collection
2. Give it a name (e.g., “City Budget Investigation”)
3. Drag and drop PDF files into the collection

Insight will process each document so the AI can search and read them. Note: text extraction works on digital PDFs; scanned PDFs (images of text) won’t be text-searchable.

Ask Questions

Once your documents are processed, just ask questions in plain language:

• “What was the total spending on consultants?”
• “Find all mentions of Company X”
• “Summarize the main findings from these reports”

The AI will search through your documents, find relevant passages, and give you an answer with citations you can click to see the original source.