Straight answers
Anything else, ask in the discord. Ready to try it? Download noah.
Is noah free?
Yes. noah costs nothing and has no paid tier, no trial and no paywall. Hosted AI models are billed by their provider under your own key; local models cost nothing.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no sign-up, no email and no login. Download it, open it, and start.
What is shepherd?
shepherd is noah's built-in AI agent. It reads your project before it writes, works through research, planning and development, and keeps building and testing until the work holds up. It can edit files, run commands you approve, and search the web.
Which AI models can I use?
Nearly fifty providers, each under your own key: Western ones such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and xAI; Chinese ones such as DeepSeek, Alibaba Qwen, Moonshot Kimi, Zhipu GLM and MiniMax; Venice, OpenRouter and any OpenAI-compatible service. Local models run through Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp. You choose how hard shepherd reasons on each request.
Where are my API keys kept?
In your system's keychain. They never reach our servers; each key goes only to the provider it belongs to, when you use that provider.
Can I run models locally, offline?
Yes. Point noah at a model served by Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp on your machine. The only limit is your hardware: whatever your memory can hold, from 7B to 405B.
Where does my code go?
Your projects stay on your machine. noah keeps no records of them and collects no telemetry. When you use a hosted model, your prompt and the code you include go straight to that provider under your key; noah is not a middleman.
Does shepherd search the web?
Yes, without an account or key. Searches go to DuckDuckGo, noah asks you before each one, and the sources are listed under the answer.
What else is in noah besides the editor?
asherin.chat, for thinking with shepherd outside any project; asherin.pages, where shepherd makes PDFs, digital books and slideshows; asherin.eye, a live 3D globe intelligence console you can extend; a device room with security checks, system health, a system-wide ad blocker and a duplicate-file cleaner; and a browser room you share with shepherd. Your chats are kept in a history you can pin.
How does noah keep shepherd in check?
Through a trust layer. Finished work comes with evidence: the checks that actually ran and what was not verified. Every change is recorded in a tamper-evident provenance log. Secrets are redacted before the model sees them, text read from the web and from files is screened for prompt injection, and commands can run in a sandbox. Anything irreversible always asks first.
How is noah related to Zed?
noah is built on Zed, the open-source editor, under its GPL-3.0 license. It keeps Zed’s speed and native rendering, removes the account and cloud features, and adds shepherd, bring-your-own-key providers and the wallpaper-driven interface.
Which systems does it run on?
Windows 10 and 11, and 64-bit Linux (a .deb for Debian and Ubuntu family systems, and a .tar.xz for every other distribution). macOS follows on the download page when its build is ready.
Windows says it protected my PC. Is the installer safe?
The installer is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen does not recognise it. Choose More info, then Run anyway. You can check the file against the SHA-256 on the download page first.
How do updates work, and how do I know they are genuine?
noah installs new releases itself. Each release manifest is signed with noah's ed25519 release key and lists a SHA-256 for every installer; noah refuses an update whose signature or checksum does not match. The security page explains how to check a download by hand.