Aura Wire AI Command Center user guide

What it is

Aura Wire AI Command Center is a local command center for AI traffic. Install the Windows app. Any IDE, CLI, SDK, or executable — and any provider or model, including combinations — talks to one Host on your machine. Guard, Router, Compress, and Advise are the same switches for every client. Capture puts programs you switch on — Cursor’s own chat, Windsurf, a custom executable — through that same Host. The installer can also add the editor extension; the command center already works without it.

The Host records what each turn cost — model, tokens, latency, and an estimated price — and can, when you turn those stages on, warn about or block secrets in a prompt, route a request to a cheaper model, trim repeated context, add coaching notes, or inject snippets from a local Aura Terran Knowledge library. The Host keeps metadata about your traffic, not the text of it, and nothing changes your request until you choose a stage that does. The optional editor extension adds Agent and Ask chat in a tab: Agent can edit files and run commands after you approve them; Ask is read-only. It uses the same stages as every other client.

Aura Wire AI Command Center is not a model or a hosted service. It talks to the providers you already use, with the keys you already have, and adds visibility and control on your side of the connection.

For a local agent loop on Ollama, use Bitfield Ollama Agent. Try it with npx @bitfieldcreek/bf-agent "summarize README.md".

What you install

• The command center (Windows) — AuraWire-Setup.exe from the download page. This is the product. It installs the app, the Host, and the wire CLI, registers Capture’s redirect service (one administrator prompt), and can add the editor extension to editors already on the machine.
• The editor extension — optional. It adds chat, a sidebar of your chats, and dashboards to the editor, on the same Host. On first chat it finds a running Host or downloads and starts one. The Windows installer can add it. On a Mac it is the install until the desktop app is signed.
• The Host (Aura.Wire.Host) — a local program the extension places in your per-user data folder. It listens only on 127.0.0.1, runs the pipeline, and offers an OpenAI-compatible /v1 endpoint that the wire CLI and your own scripts can also use. No administrator rights, certificate, or driver are needed.
• Capture (optional, Windows) — a one-time elevated redirect service plus a root CA that put programs you switch on — Cursor’s native chat, Windsurf, custom executables — through the same pipeline. Comes with the Windows installer and the wire CLI.

The Host runs on Windows and on Mac (Apple silicon). Capture is Windows-only. The full list of files, folders, and network activity is under What installs, and how to remove it.

Prerequisites

• Windows for the command center. The optional editor extension also runs in VS Code 1.85+ or a compatible fork (Insiders, VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf), including Apple silicon Macs
• Access to at least one provider you want to chat with — an OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini key; a Cursor, Copilot, or Claude agent login; or local Ollama (no key)
• For Capture: Windows and the Windows installer
• Optional: a local Aura Terran Knowledge install if you want the Terran bridge (see Terran bridge)

Install

On Windows, download Aura Wire AI Command Center and run AuraWire-Setup.exe. That installs the command center, the Host, and the wire CLI. The finish page can add the editor extension; you can skip it and keep using the app. On a Mac, the extension below is the install until the desktop app is signed.

Visx, the editor satellite

1. Download the Visx .zip from this site (the same file is on the download page). Extract it, then in your editor open Extensions → ⋯ → Install from VSIX… and choose the .vsix inside. Do not double-click the .vsix — Windows may open Visual Studio’s installer, which cannot install VS Code extensions. VS Code disables its own Marketplace auto-update for extensions installed this way; in VS Code you can turn it back on by right-clicking the extension in the Extensions view and ticking Auto Update. The in-chat Update button works either way.
2. Or install from the VS Code Marketplace. When a newer build is on our release feed, the chat shows Update; you can also run Aura Wire: Check for updates. Updates install only when you accept them.
3. Open the Aura Wire sidebar. The extension finds a running Host or starts one; if there is no Host on this machine yet, it downloads one in the editor, verifies the file’s checksum, and starts it. No administrator prompt.

Host data (settings, provider keys, license record, logs, and the traffic database) is stored under %LOCALAPPDATA%\AuraWire on Windows and ~/Library/Application Support/AuraWire on macOS, and survives upgrades.

First chat

1. Click New chat in the Aura Wire sidebar — the conversation opens in an editor tab
2. Pick a mode: Agent can edit the workspace and run shell commands, and asks for approval before writes and commands; Ask is read-only
3. Pick a provider and model. Set keys once in Aura Wire Settings (open it from the sidebar). Keys are kept on your machine; the extension ships no vendor SDKs
4. Send. Every turn goes through the local Host /v1, so Observe records its metadata (during the 14-day trial or with the purchased license) and any enabled pipeline stage applies
5. Open Live Traffic from the sidebar to see the turn — IDE aura-wire-vscode, your open folder as the project, model, tokens, latency, and cost estimate
6. Optional: activate a purchased license from the extension under Aura Wire Settings → License. New installs start a 14-day trial of the whole product with the first chat; no card, no account, and nothing to install beyond the extension

By default Aura Wire AI Command Center observes only. Guard, Router, Compress, Terran, and Advise start off until you enable them under Pipeline. When you turn them on, Guard starts in Warn mode, Router in Suggest mode, and Advise in Dashboard mode — so nothing blocks, rewrites, or injects until you choose that setting. Sandbox lets you run canned prompts through the stages in dry-run mode before you apply them to real chats.

Capture — put other tools’ chat in the pipeline (Windows)

Capture is for chat you don’t control: Cursor’s native agent, Windsurf, or any program you switch on. On Windows it routes AI traffic by process — not by writing editor http.proxy settings. A one-time elevated redirect service diverts HTTPS from switched-on programs into Aura Wire’s local proxy (default port 41792). Nothing in the VS Code extension needs it.

1. Run AuraWire-Setup-1.7.119.exe from the download page. It installs or updates the redirect service (UAC once) and the wire CLI, and adds the extension to editors it detects. If you declined the service, use Get set up or Settings → Setup → IDE → Install redirect service
2. Start the proxy (Settings → Setup → General) and install the root CA (Settings → Setup → Certificate) for full HTTPS inspection — approval is explicit, never silent
3. Under Settings → Setup → IDE, toggle Route through Aura Wire for Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, or add a custom executable
4. Fully quit and reopen those programs, then confirm events appear in Live Traffic
5. If an editor shows Went dark, use Reconnect editors to reset bypassed sockets without reinstalling the redirect service

Your browser and apps you did not switch on are not redirected. Within a redirected process, only allowlisted AI provider hosts are inspected. If the WinDivert driver cannot load (Memory Integrity / device policy), the IDE tab says so plainly — there is no proxy-settings fallback for Capture; the extension and /v1 keep working. Leftover http.proxy keys from older Aura Wire versions no longer route traffic and can be removed from the editor’s settings.

Pipeline stages (opt-in)

Each stage is a switch under Pipeline. All are off on a new install except Observe.

• Observe — records sanitized metadata for every turn (provider, model, tokens, latency, cost estimate) and shows it in Live Traffic and the session timeline. Needs the trial or the purchased license
• Sandbox — run canned prompts through the pipeline, dry-run or live, to see what a stage would do before you use it on real chats
• Guard — detects inline secrets (API keys, tokens) and, optionally, topics you mark as protected. Warn logs a finding; Redact replaces the secret; Block stops the request. Matched secret values are not written to the traffic database
• Router — suggests, or applies, a different model or provider for a request based on rules you set, translating the request format when providers differ
• Compress — reduces tokens on long sessions by replacing repeated blocks with short aliases, compacting older history, right-sizing images, and trimming large attachments to the relevant parts. Aliases are expanded on the way back
• Terran — inserts relevant passages from a local Aura Terran Knowledge library into the request (see below). If Terran is not running, the request continues without injection
• Advise — prompting coach based on patterns in your own traffic (retries, repeated pasting, vague prompts). Dashboard cards are always available; the Inject mode, which appends a short note to eligible replies, needs the trial or the purchased license

Stages apply to every path into the Host — editor-tab chat, the wire CLI, and any SDK client pointed at /v1, and Capture traffic. Each stage has a Working samples tab so you can check its behavior on canned prompts, and Settings → Pipeline scope can limit changes to selected projects.

Terran bridge (optional)

Wire’s Terran stage is a bridge to Aura Terran Knowledge, a separate product that you install and license separately. Buying Aura Wire AI Command Center includes the bridge entitlement but not Terran itself; buying Terran includes the same bridge entitlement. To use it:

1. Install and run Terran with its Management API enabled (default http://127.0.0.1:41800)
2. In Aura Wire, open Pipeline → Aura Terran and enable the stage
3. On Connection, set the URL, the namespace to search, and search options

Editor-tab chat and other /v1 clients are enriched from then on. Live Traffic shows whether a turn was enriched or skipped, not the passages themselves. Everything happens on your machine over loopback; if Terran is unavailable, traffic continues without injection.

Privacy and data

Aura Wire AI Command Center is designed so that your prompts, replies, code, and keys stay on your machine. This is how it behaves today; it is a design choice, not a guarantee against every possible misconfiguration, and the providers you chat with still receive what you send them under their own policies.

Stays on your machine

• Prompts and replies — processed in memory by the Host for the request. The traffic database keeps provider, model, token counts, latency, cost estimates, Guard finding types, and Advise rule counts — not message text, tool arguments, or raw provider responses. Run Privacy Audit from the dashboard to check this yourself: it sends a unique marker through the live pipeline and scans local storage for it
• Chat history — the extension saves your conversations in your editor’s extension storage so you can reopen them. That is separate from the Host’s traffic database and is not sent anywhere
• Provider API keys — stored in a file in your per-user data folder and used only to call the provider you chose. Bitfield Creek Labs does not receive them

Leaves your machine

• Requests to your providers — the chat you send goes to OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, or whichever provider you picked, over that provider’s normal HTTPS. Wire does not change the destination unless you enable a Router rule that does
• Update checks — the extension reads our release feed when the editor starts and about hourly while it is open, to see whether a newer extension or Host exists. Downloads happen only when you accept
• License and trial — starting the trial or activating a key sends the product, a random device identifier, the app version, and (for activation) your license key to our license server, once. The stored license then works offline
• De-identified operational events — the extension posts that it was installed or updated, a once-a-day “still installed” ping, whether the Host started, and update-check outcomes. Each carries the extension version, OS, a coarse editor label (VS Code, Cursor, other), and a random install identifier — no usernames, machine names, file paths, or project names

The Privacy Policy describes these events and the website in full. If something here does not match what you see, tell us.

Troubleshooting

• Visual Studio VSIX Installer shows “Install Failed” — you opened the .vsix outside VS Code. Use the site .zip, extract it, then install from inside your editor: Extensions → ⋯ → Install from VSIX…
• Chat says Host is missing or starting — the extension fetches the Host in the editor; allow the download and wait for ready. It needs network access to aura-wire-releases.bitfieldcreek.com. The Host runs on Windows and on Mac (Apple silicon).
• Provider missing from the picker — add and configure that provider in Aura Wire Settings; hovering the picker shows a hint
• No Capture traffic in Live Traffic — confirm the proxy is running, the redirect service is installed, the program is switched on (fully quit/reopen), and the root CA is trusted for HTTPS; try Reconnect editors if connections bypass Wire
• HTTPS requests not fully inspected — install the development CA from Settings → Setup → Certificate
• Redirect service / driver blocked — Memory Integrity or device policy can prevent WinDivert; the IDE tab surfaces this — there is no http.proxy fallback for Capture, but editor-tab chat and /v1 keep working
• Updates not found — the extension checks our release feed for both the extension and the Host (chat Update or Aura Wire: Check for updates)
• VS Code stopped auto-updating the extension — installing from a .vsix pins the extension in VS Code. Right-click it in the Extensions view and tick Auto Update, or accept the next Marketplace Update, which clears the pin
• Want to confirm nothing sensitive is stored — run Privacy Audit from the dashboard