FAQ

General

Is Brain tied to Vercel?
No. Core paths use your Postgres, Better Auth, and Command Code (or custom models) — not Vercel AI Gateway, Connect, or Sandbox.

Why not just use Claude or ChatGPT?
Those are public products. Company threads would live on someone else’s site, and they do not log into your Slack or Snowflake as your staff. Brain is the private client on your host. The default model path is also OpenAI-compatible chat completions — native Anthropic Messages is not wired. See Architecture.

Does Brain train on our data or use RAG?
No. Chat history stays in your Postgres. Work data is read live through MCP. Brain does not copy apps into a vector index and does not train models; fine-tuning belongs at the model host (for example Azure AI Foundry).

Can we use Azure AI Foundry?
Yes. Register the OpenAI-compatible endpoint on /models. Chat can run without COMMAND_CODE_API_KEY when a usable custom model exists. See Custom models.

Where are the docs?
Public at /docs (no sign-in required). Stakeholder architecture write-ups also live in the repository (docs/brain-executive-overview.md, docs/brain-technical-architecture.md).

Chat and tools

Ask vs Agent?
Ask is plain chat. Agent enables MCP tools and attached-repo coding. See modes.

Why did a tool ask for approval?
Write tools use human-in-the-loop approval. See Approvals.

Chat search finds nothing I typed in a message
Sidebar search matches chat titles only (active workspace), not full message text.

Attached repo / coding fails on my server
Coding needs the microsandbox runtime (Linux + KVM or macOS Apple Silicon). See Attached repo.

Auth and workspaces

How do I invite teammates?
Team workspace → /workspaces/settings?tab=invites. See Members and invites.

SSO says domain unverified
Publish the DNS TXT token and click Verify DNS. Login stays blocked until verified — SSO.

Forgot password does nothing
Needs instance policy + SMTP. Admins can still reset under Instance users.

Self-hosting

Chat errors with ECONNREFUSED …4274
eve did not start. Production starts eve on loopback 4274, then Next on 3000 — Self-hosting.

Users must reconnect MCP after every deploy
Persist the .eve/ directory.

Do schedules need extra env?
Yes: BRAIN_INTERNAL_TOKEN (and usually BRAIN_INTERNAL_URL). See Environment.

How do I restore a host?
Postgres + .eve/ + the same signing secrets — Upgrades and backups.