How AI works in Trace

Every other product in this category meters AI by credits — twenty a month here, a hundred there, unlimited if you pay the top tier. That tells you it is a real per-call cost being resold.

Trace is a one-time license, which cannot carry a recurring inference bill. So the model is inverted: you supply the key, and the features switch on. Nothing is metered, because we are not the ones paying for it.

Providers

• OpenAI-compatible. Anything speaking that API shape.
• Anthropic. Claude models.
• Ollama, or any local endpoint. Nothing leaves your building.

What is sent

Only metadata your crew produced — captions, tags, timestamps, coordinates, the job name. Images are never uploaded. That is what makes pointing this at a third party defensible at all, and it is enforced in the code rather than promised in a policy.

What happens with no key

Every AI feature is simply absent. No upsell, no greyed-out button, no "upgrade to unlock". Nothing in Trace depends on it.

Settings → AI. Paste a key, press Test connection, and the features appear.