Reference
Frequently Asked Questions
What Refractive is, how it works, what it runs on, and what it costs — answered plainly.
The basics
What is Refractive?
Refractive is a voice-first AI agent that manages your life and projects. It runs an onboarding interview to learn your goals, situation, and working style, then tracks commitments across eight life domains and follows up with you on its own rather than waiting to be opened. It's built by Ordinary Company, LLC.
How is it different from ChatGPT or Claude?
Those are general-purpose assistants you drive turn by turn — they respond when prompted and largely start fresh each time. Refractive is a harness built around a model: it holds persistent memory of your life, tracks goals that outlive any single conversation, and initiates contact. It also runs on models rather than competing with them — open-weight ones by default, or your own Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or OpenRouter key if you'd rather pick.
What are the eight life domains?
Physical Body, Time, Emotions & Meaning, Contribution, Spirituality, Finances, Career & Mission, and Relationships — plus a ninth 'YOU' node holding your biography, values, and patterns. You can deactivate any domain you don't want tracked, and reactivating it restores its full history.
Do I talk to it or type?
Voice is the primary interface — it's a real-time conversation, not a form. This is deliberate: the friction of typing into structured fields is what ends most check-in habits within a few weeks.
How it works
What happens when I first sign up?
You set the agent's personality across fourteen attributes — warmth, directness, formality, humor, and others — before anything else. Then it runs an onboarding interview to learn your projects, goals, and how you work. It uses that to build an initial map of your life rather than starting from a blank template.
Can I change the agent's personality later?
Yes. All fourteen attributes are adjustable in Settings at any time, and you can save a configuration you like as a named custom mode. Some options unlock as you use the product rather than being available on day one.
What is the Context Graph?
A living map of everything the agent knows about you — entries from your conversations, linked automatically by shared people, projects, themes, and emotions. A nightly job finds connections between entries, so the agent can notice that your sleep degrades before every deadline without you ever pointing it out.
What is the Grid?
Your life visualized as an explorable isometric city, where each district is a life domain. It's how missions and progress are surfaced spatially rather than as another to-do list.
Does it work if I don't use it every day?
Yes — that's much of the point. Background jobs continue running and the agent initiates contact rather than waiting for you to open it. A tool that only works when you remember to check it is a tracker, not an agent.
Models, cost, and data
Which AI model does Refractive use?
By default, open-weight models that Refractive pays for — DeepSeek V4 Pro, GLM-5.2, or Kimi K2.6, with DeepSeek V4 Pro as the default. There is nothing to connect and no message limit. You can switch models mid-conversation from the agent's name plate, and if you want a frontier model instead you can connect your own Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or OpenRouter key and pick a specific model to run on it. Routine background work — sorting an entry into a life domain, extracting keywords — always stays on a cheap open model regardless of what you picked, because it isn't conversation.
Do I have to choose which model to use?
No — there's a sensible default and you never have to open the menu. Refractive also routes by complexity on its own: routine background work like extraction and tagging goes to a small cheap model, and live conversation goes to the one you're talking to. If you do want to choose, the agent's name plate is a dropdown, and switching mid-conversation doesn't restart it.
Is Refractive free?
Right now, yes — the included open models are free to use, with no message limit and no API key required. That is the point of running on open weights: they are cheap enough to give away while Refractive is in early access. A paid plan is planned, and connecting your own key will always be an alternative to it rather than something you're pushed toward.
What happens to my data?
Your context, conversations, and life data are stored in your own account and used to give the agent memory of your situation. Conversations are sent to a model service so the agent can reply, under a per-request requirement that it neither store nor train on them. The Emotions & Meaning domain includes a private mode for sessions you don't want used elsewhere, any entry can be hidden or deleted individually, and the Account page has one button to export everything and one to delete it all. The privacy policy names every company involved.
Can I use my own API key?
Yes. Connect an Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or OpenRouter key in Settings, or click any greyed-out model in the switcher, and you choose the specific model that answers you — Claude, GPT, Gemini, or a frontier open model. That provider bills you directly at their rates. An OpenRouter key is the most useful one to bring: it reaches the frontier open models AND takes over paying for the included ones.
Fit
Who is Refractive for?
People who want an AI that manages things proactively across their whole life rather than a chat window they have to drive. It tends to fit people who have tried several habit trackers or productivity apps and found that the tools went quiet exactly when they were most needed.
Is this a therapy or medical product?
No. The Emotions & Meaning domain is designed for reflection and includes crisis guardrails that direct people to real support, but Refractive is not a therapist, not a medical device, and does not provide clinical care. The same applies to finances — it doesn't give investment or tax advice.
Can I use it with my partner or household?
The Finances domain supports households: you can invite another person to join a shared household and track budgets together. The other domains are individual.