Using Acastus Intelligence.

Getting started

1. Install and sign in. Download the Windows app, then sign in with Google.
2. Start a new mission (Ctrl+N). One question is enough. Optionally add things to compare (one per line) and criteria such as Price (USD, lower) or Noise (dB). Advanced options: background, must-answer questions, scope, trusted or excluded domains, freshness, and files (PDF, HTML or text). Pick an effort level.
3. Watch mission control. You see real stages and counters (discovered, fetched, parsed, relevant, analyzed, cited, rejected, duplicates, inaccessible). There is no fake percentage. You can pause, resume, cancel (a cancel before anything was fetched costs nothing) or retry failed stages, and you can close the app: the server keeps working.
4. Open the evidence. The evidence explorer lists every claim with its status, a confidence label with the reason, and the original excerpt with its location, retrieval date and publication date. Show stored source text shows exactly what was analyzed.
5. Use the comparison studio. Values come only from evidence. Change weights or criteria and recalculate instantly; no new research runs.
6. Read the report. Executive summary, findings per sub-question, comparison, counter-evidence, limitations, methodology and every citation. Click a citation such as [S3.2] to jump to the excerpt.
7. Agent activity shows the actual task graph: which role did what, attempts, errors and model usage.

Effort levels

Every plan can choose every effort level: Quick (a fast answer from a handful of strong sources), Standard (the default, balanced), High (more sources, more cross-checking) and Max (the most thorough). Deeper levels use more of your usage. Before you launch, the app shows an estimate from the server and disables Launch if the server would refuse it. You can also cap one mission with Max usage for this mission, a percentage of your 3-hour limit.

Usage limits

Acastus shows usage as percentages only. Two limits apply at the same time:

• Rolling window (5 hours on Free, 3 hours on paid plans). What you used in that window, plus what any running or paused research has used so far. The app shows when usage frees up.
• Weekly. What you used since Monday 12:00 AM Eastern. It resets every Monday at that time.

You can start research whenever you have any usage left in both windows. If you run out while it runs, the research stops and writes its report from what it already found. A launch is refused only when nothing is left. Usage is what research actually spent, not a flat fee per run. Scheduled Living Research checks use the same usage, and a check that does not fit is skipped with a notification. Plan sizes are shown live on the pricing page.

Plans and keys

Your plan is tied to your Acastus Intelligence account and is read from the Acastus server, never from a web page. Buy or change it on the pricing page or in the app under Settings, Plans. Paid plans are billed monthly by Stripe; use Manage subscription to change plan or cancel, and the account returns to Free when a paid plan ends. Yearly billing is not offered.

Keys for other Astrix products, such as Astrix Ultimate or MEGA, do not unlock Acastus Intelligence, and Acastus Intelligence plans do not unlock other Astrix apps.

What the labels mean

• Verified: the excerpt was re-checked against the stored source.
• Contested: independent sources disagree.
• Unverified: could not be checked. Treat it as not established.
• Derived: computed by code from cited values.
• Unknown (comparison studio): no verified value. Conflicting: sources disagree; left out of scores.

Exports and your data

Export a report as PDF, HTML or Markdown, and the evidence as CSV or JSON, with citations intact; you can also print. In Settings you can export all of your data. Research runs on the Acastus research server and your reports are stored with your account.

Updates and checksums

The app checks for updates and installs them only after you say so. Every update is verified against its published SHA-256 checksum. To verify a manual download, run Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 on the installer in PowerShell and compare the result with the checksum on the download page. Windows SmartScreen may warn about a newly released installer; check the checksum first.

Troubleshooting sign-in