Your characters.
Your AI.
Your machine.

A local-first character card editor and chat client. Bring any AI provider you already use. Nothing leaves your computer unless you send it there.

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Cardwave workspace with character editor and chat side-by-side — FIG. 01 —Cardwave 2.0, workspace view with the character editor and chat in one window.

01 / Privacy

Your files stay on your machine.

Cardwave stores cards, chats, keys, and settings in one folder on your disk. No account, no sync, no analytics in the app.

The only outbound network calls are the ones you trigger: a chat message going to the provider whose API key you entered. There is no Cardwave server in the path.

Cardwave chat interface — FIG. 02 —Everything the app uses sits in one folder on your disk.

02 / Models

Bring the AI you already pay for.

Cardwave takes an API key and talks to the provider directly. Swap providers per chat. There is no Cardwave subscription or premium tier.

New to this? NanoGPT's $8/month subscription covers GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, and most of the roleplay models from a single key. The link is a referral; using it supports the project.

platform.openai.com OpenAI API keys and billing. GPT and o-series models.
console.anthropic.com Anthropic API keys. Claude family.
aistudio.google.com Google AI Studio. Free tier available, paid access via Google Cloud.
console.x.ai xAI API keys. Grok models.
openrouter.ai One key, hundreds of models from every major provider. Pay-per-use.
nano-gpt.com Flat-rate subscription across many models. Referral link.

Cardwave model picker with multiple AI providers — FIG. 03 —One model picker across every provider you've configured.

03 / Cards

Built around Character Cards V3.

The editor covers the full V3 spec — name, description, personality, scenario, first message, example dialogues, lorebooks, prompt macros — with a preview of the exact text the model will see. The chat client adds persona swapping, branching swipes, and prompt inspection.

Author and chat in the same workspace. Drop a PNG into the cards folder and it opens in either view.

Cardwave editor and chat split view — FIG. 04 —Author on the left, chat on the right. Same files in both.

04 / Sources

Where do I find characters?

Cardwave doesn't browse or download cards from inside the app. Drop a PNG into the cards folder and it appears on the next refresh.

A few sites where the community publishes cards:

aicharactercards.com Curated card listings.
character-tavern.com Community card directory with reliable downloads.
realm.risuai.net The official RisuAI card directory. Solid catalog, downloadable PNGs.
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.

Cardwave application running — FIG. 05 —One folder, one app, running on your own machine.

05 / Honest

Honest about what this is.

Cardwave is free and built by one person who uses it daily. No company, no subscription, no tracker, no email signup.

Released under a permissive license, as-is. No SLAs and no committed roadmap, but bug reports and feature suggestions are welcome.

BetaCardwave is in active development. Keep backups of your character cards.

06 / Get

Get Cardwave.

Windows

Portable .zip. Unpack and run, no installer.

Download .zip

Android

APK install. Sideload via your file manager.

Download .apk

Web app

Runs in your browser, no install. Great for trying things out — web storage may reset between beta updates, so install desktop or Android for persistent data.

Launch web app

Looking for an older build? Browse the release archive.

Your characters.Your AI.Your machine.