Setting up Brae

About five minutes. Brae walks you through all of this when it first opens; this page is here if you want to read ahead or change something later.

1. Install

1. Open Brae.dmg from your Downloads and drag Brae onto Applications.
2. Open Brae from Applications. It lives in the notch: there's no Dock icon.

Brae needs macOS 26 or later on a Mac with Apple silicon.

2. Allow two permissions

macOS asks you to switch these on in System Settings › Privacy & Security. Setup opens the right page for you.

• Accessibility: to read the text of the window you ask about, and to paste an answer where you're typing.
• Screen & System Audio Recording: to see charts, images and scanned pages in that window. macOS asks to reopen Brae; choose Quit & Reopen.

Brae reads a window only when you press the shortcut. Password managers and password fields are never read.

3. Choose how Brae answers

Pick Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini in Settings › Ask & AI (setup asks too).

• Claude, with an Anthropic API key (recommended): make one in the Claude Console (add a few dollars of credits first; name it Brae, workspace Default, expiration Never), then add it in Settings › Ask & AI. You pay Anthropic per question, usually a few cents; Brae caps each question at $1. Connected apps work with a key.
• Claude, with your Claude plan: if you pay for Claude and have Claude Code signed in on your Mac, turn on Answer with my Claude plan in Settings › Ask & AI. Questions use your plan's limits under your own agreement with Anthropic, which sets its own rules and can change them. Connected apps need an API key.
• ChatGPT, with an OpenAI API key: make one at platform.openai.com and add it the same way. Paid per question, usually a few cents (capped at $1).
• Gemini, with a Gemini API key: make one in Google AI Studio (it has a free monthly allowance) and add it the same way.

4. Use it

• AControl Command A: ask about the window you're in. Type a follow-up in the box under the answer.
• AControl Shift Command A: drag around part of the screen to ask about just that.
• Insert puts the answer into the text box you were typing in. Copy keeps tables as tables.
• Drag files or a YouTube link onto the notch to keep them on the Shelf, convert them, or get a transcript.

5. Turn on guides (optional)

A guide tells Brae how a kind of question is solved and laid out, so answers come back the same way every time. Setup turns on starter packs for what you do: for students, guides for the most-taken intro classes (algebra, calculus, statistics, chemistry, physics, biology, economics, accounting, psychology, history and writing); for finance, DCF, WACC, bonds, three-statement models and more. Work templates (meeting notes, status updates, code reviews) are there to turn on and make your own. Switch any pack or guide on or off in Settings › Guides, customize a starter guide to match your class or team, or write your own. When a page clearly fits a guide that's on, Brae uses it, and the guide's name shows while it answers: click it to answer without it.

6. Connect your apps (optional)

In Settings › Connections:

• Calendar & Reminders, Apple Notes: click Connect and allow it when macOS asks.
• Obsidian: pick your vault folder.
• GitHub: uses the GitHub command-line tool's sign-in (brew install gh, then gh auth login), like Claude Code does.
• Canvas: in Canvas, open Account › Settings › New Access Token, then paste it with your school's Canvas address.
• Notion, Jira & Confluence, Linear, Granola, Canva and more: click Connect and sign in on the app's own site. Brae can only look things up there.

Anything that changes something (an event, a note, a comment) shows you exactly what will happen and waits for your OK.

Coding agents in the notch

In Settings › Agents, click Connect next to Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI. Brae adds a small entry to that agent's settings (keeping a backup) so its sessions report to the notch, and you can answer their permission requests from there. In Codex, type /hooks once and approve Brae's entry.

Uninstall

1. In Settings › Agents, click Disconnect next to each connected agent (this removes Brae's entry from its settings).
2. Quit Brae from the ⋯ menu and drag it from Applications to the Trash.
3. Optional: delete ~/Library/Application Support/Brae (Recents and the Shelf), and in Keychain Access search "Brae" to remove saved sign-ins.

Help

In Brae: Settings › License & Help › Report a Problem, or email support@getbrae.app.