Your characters.
Your AI.
Your machine.

Local-first means local-first.

Every character card, every chat history, every API key, every setting lives on your own machine. There is no cloud sync, no account to create, no telemetry, no analytics inside the application. Your conversations stay where you have them.

The only network requests Cardwave ever makes are the ones you tell it to: a chat message going to the AI provider you chose, with the API key you provided. Nothing flows through us — there is no us in the middle. Your files, your keys, your machine.

Bring any AI you already pay for.

Cardwave is a "bring your own key" app. Plug in OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, xAI Grok, OpenRouter, or NanoGPT — Cardwave routes your chats through whichever provider you prefer, with the model you prefer, at whatever rate you negotiated with them. Switch providers per chat, per character, or per task. There is no upsell, no premium tier, no model gated behind a Cardwave subscription, because there is no Cardwave subscription.

If you don't already have a provider, NanoGPT runs an $8/month subscription that unlocks a wide library of models — including DeepSeek, Claude, GPT, Gemini, and most of the roleplay-friendly options the community uses. It's the easiest way to start without juggling five separate API keys. (That link is a referral, in case you'd like to support the project.)

Built around Character Cards V3.

Cardwave is a first-class editor and a first-class chat client at the same time. The editor handles the full Character Card V3 specification — name, description, personality, scenario, first message, example dialogues, lorebooks, prompt macros — with a side-by-side preview that shows exactly what the model will see. The chat client picks up from there, with persona swapping, branching swipes, prompt inspection, and the small quality-of-life touches that long sessions actually need.

Whether you're building a card from scratch or picking up someone else's PNG, the same workspace handles both. Author and use, in one place.

Where do I find characters?

Cardwave doesn't browse, mirror, or download character cards from inside the app. That's a deliberate choice — content licensing on community card sites is messy enough without a third-party app baking their catalogs in. Instead, Cardwave assumes you'll bring your own collection: drop a PNG into the cards folder and it shows up.

If you're starting fresh and don't know where to look, the community publishes character cards on a handful of sites. Browse them in your normal browser, download the PNG you want, and drop it into your cards folder. Cardwave will pick it up on the next refresh.

• realm.risuai.net The official RisuAI card directory. Solid catalog, downloadable PNGs.
• character-tavern.com Community card directory with reliable downloads.
• app.wyvern.chat Curated cards from the Wyvern community.
• pygmalion.chat Pygmalion's community catalog with downloadable cards.
• jannyai.com A janitorai mirror that, unlike the original, lets you actually download the cards.
• aicharactercards.com Community-curated card listings.