Bring AI to Your Desktop, Not the Other Way Around

We've all been there. You're in the middle of coding, writing, or just browsing, and you need a quick answer from an AI. You either have to open a browser tab, switch to a dedicated app, or paste text into a chat interface. It breaks your flow. What if the AI could just be right there, in any window, ready to help?

That's the idea behind Everywhere. Instead of building another siloed AI application, it turns your entire desktop into an interactive AI workspace. It's a lightweight, open-source tool that lets you summon multiple AI models with a simple keyboard shortcut, no matter what you're doing.

What It Does

Everywhere is a desktop application that runs locally on your machine. At its core, it's a global overlay that you can trigger from any application using a configurable hotkey (like Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + E). This brings up a small, unobtrusive input box. You can ask a question, highlight text for context, or request an action, and it will route your query to an AI model of your choice.

The key is its multi-model support. You're not locked into a single provider. You can configure it to use OpenAI's models (GPT-4, GPT-3.5), Anthropic's Claude, or open-source models via the Ollama local inference engine. This means you can choose between powerful cloud models for complex tasks or fast, private local models for quick, sensitive queries.

Why It's Cool

The magic is in the workflow integration and the developer-friendly approach.

True Context Awareness: The real power comes from its ability to read the context of your active window. You can select text before triggering the hotkey, and Everywhere will automatically include it in your prompt. Need to refactor a block of code you're looking at? Highlight it, hit the hotkey, and ask. Writing an email and need a better tone? Same process. It removes the tedious copy-paste cycle.

It's a Toolkit, Not Just a Tool: Beyond simple Q&A, it includes built-in "skills." These are pre-configured operations like summarizing text, translating languages, explaining code, or even generating commit messages from a diff. It feels less like chatting with a bot and more like having a supercharged right-click menu for your brain.

Privacy-First & Extensible: Because it's open-source and can run models locally via Ollama, you can keep sensitive data completely offline. For developers, the codebase is clean and modular. The skill system and model integrations are designed to be extended, making it a great foundation for building your own custom desktop AI assistants.

How to Try It

Getting started is straightforward. The project is hosted on GitHub.

1. Head to the repository: github.com/DearVa/Everywhere
2. Check the Releases: Navigate to the "Releases" section on the right-hand side of the repo. Download the latest installer for your operating system (Windows, macOS, or Linux).
3. Install & Configure: Run the installer. On first launch, you'll need to add your API keys for the cloud-based AI services you want to use (like OpenAI or Anthropic). If you prefer local models, you'll need to have Ollama installed and running in the background.
4. Summon it: Open any application (your IDE, a document, a browser), select some text if you want, and press the default Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + E hotkey. Start asking questions.

The README has clear, detailed configuration instructions to get your preferred models set up.

Final Thoughts

As a developer, tools that reduce friction are the most valuable ones. Everywhere isn't about adding another distracting application; it's about making the AI capabilities you already pay for or run locally immediately useful. It turns the AI from a destination into a utility, like a spell-checker or a calculator, that's available everywhere.

It's a pragmatic take on the "AI assistant" concept. You probably don't need another chat interface. You need a faster way to apply intelligence to the task right in front of you. For quick code explanations, drafting responses, or brainstorming without breaking your state of flow, Everywhere delivers. It's the kind of tool you try for a day and then wonder how you worked without it.

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