DocsQuestions and troubleshooting
Questions

Things people ask first.

Answers about getting started, usage, privacy and billing.

I've never used an AI agent before - is this for me?

Yes. Ergod is built to be the no-friction door to AI. No paywall, no setup, no codebase to maintain - open a browser tab and ask, or add it to a server if you have one. You don't need to know how to code, you don't need to install anything, and you can try it free in our community without owning a server. The whole point is that you can experience what an AI agent actually does, with your friends, before deciding anything.

I don't really use Discord - is this for me?

Yes. There are three ways in and only one of them is Discord. Open the dashboard at app.ergod.dev, sign in with Google, GitHub or Discord, and type - the composer works before you have a workspace, and your first message creates one. Or message the bot on Telegram, where you do not need an account at all to start. No server to join, no bot to install, nothing to download. You can link Google, GitHub, Discord and Telegram to one account so they all reach the same workspace - link each one before you send your first message from it, because an identity that has already made a workspace of its own cannot be merged into another. Working together is not Discord-only either: open a web room from the dashboard's Rooms tab (hosting a web room takes Pro or Pro+; joining one with a code is free), hand out its invite code, and its chat, files and game tables are shared with whoever joins - and the same fourteen games open from the Play tab with Ergod across the board. What stays on the Discord side is the room a channel itself hosts, the voice-channel Activity and the per-server admin controls. If you do administer a server, the dashboard can show you its settings and change them.

What can I actually use this for?

Anything you can describe - a landing page for your business, a script that renames files, a Discord bot, a tip calculator, a small game, a research summary, a CSV cruncher. If it would take a developer an afternoon, Ergod can take a swing at it in minutes.

Why not just use ChatGPT or Claude directly?

Ergod runs the work, fixes errors, and returns finished files instead of stopping at a code snippet. In Discord, a group can use one shared channel agent, history, and workspace; Just me keeps personal work in your own space.

Can Ergod do things on a schedule?

Yes. Try: "Every weekday at 8am, DM me a morning briefing with the weather and one AI headline." Ergod confirms the schedule and does the work each time, delivered to your DMs, a channel, or a thread. Agent runs have a 15-minute minimum interval. Use /tasks to list, pause, resume, or delete schedules. Runs share your normal usage; when the host is busy or the allowance is exhausted, they wait and try again automatically.

How much usage can scheduled tasks use?

All your schedules together can use up to 100% of the usage included with your plan, within its daily or rolling weekly window. They also need room in your normal account balance. Welcome and purchased credits can fund runs after other work uses your included balance, but do not increase the separate ceiling for scheduled work. When that ceiling is reached, schedules wait until usage becomes available again. Existing schedules set more often than every 15 minutes automatically follow the 15-minute minimum.

Does it remember stuff between conversations?

Yes. Your personal agent can keep preferences and project decisions across your personal sessions. Shared rooms keep their own channel history, separate from your personal memory, so the group can return to its work without merging it into yours.

Is there really a free tier?

Yes — a daily usage allowance, every day, with no credit card. There is no message count to run down: a quick question uses a little, a big build uses more, and Ergod shows you what is left as a percentage while you work. It refills every day at midnight UTC, and your first day starts with a usage bonus on top. You also get 1 GB of workspace, direct DMs, named sessions, image input, GitHub linking, your own tools (MCP), and the option to plug in your own provider key so the same usage goes about 5× further. If you need more once, buy credits without subscribing; if you regularly need more, Pro ($9.99/mo) is 2.5× Free's usage, pooled over a rolling week so you can spend it in one night. Pro also adds a bigger workspace, the headroom to host several shared channel sessions at once, and collaborator invites that let you share your own workspace — Free already hosts up to three shared channel rooms across servers, on your own storage, and friends join them free. Slash commands like /help and /vote never cost you anything.

Can I buy more usage without subscribing?

Yes. $0.99 buys 1,000 credits in both Discord and the dashboard. They never expire, stack on top of Free, Pro or Pro+, and Ergod uses them only after your included usage and any bonus reserve are used. The dashboard offers the same preset packs as Discord, plus a custom amount from $0.99 to $100. This adds usage only; it does not change your plan, storage or subscription.

What's the difference between Pro and Pro+?

Headroom, and nothing else. Pro+ is twice Pro on the two things that run out: usage (double Pro's, 5× Free, pooled the same way) and the workspace (10 GB instead of 5 GB). Everything else is identical — the same model picker over the same curated shortlist, the same sub-agents, the same channel personas, shared workspaces and collaborator invites, the same 60-minute container idle timeout. There is no Pro+-only model. So the question to ask is simply whether you are running out on Pro: if you are, Pro+ doubles it, and Pro+ subscribers get priority support from us. If you are not, stay on Pro — you would be paying for headroom you are not using.

Need a bit more usage today?

Run /vote in Discord. It opens our top.gg page, and each counted vote tops up your credits — spent only after the usage included with your plan, and they never expire, though voting can only fill them so far. top.gg lets you vote again every cooldown, up to twice a day. The grant is the same on every tier, so it is worth most on Free and barely registers against Pro's weekly pool — /usage shows your credits beside your meter. Voting regularly builds a streak that shows in /usage and /tier.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. Describe what you want in plain English. Ergod plans the work, writes the code, runs it, and gives you the files. If you want to learn, it explains what it did.

Is my stuff safe?

Your personal agent, workspace, and history are isolated to your account. A shared room is intentionally available to its channel members, and messages, replies, and files posted in a channel remain visible there. Publishing an unlisted public link is a separate action. GitHub tokens are encrypted at rest and never written to disk; git reads them from an ephemeral helper, scoped to your turn only.

Which AI models does it use?

Every tier picks. Free chooses from a small curated lineup of 4 hosted models with /model list and /model set — the default is the most thorough of them, so switching is a preference, not a rescue. Pro and Pro+ pick from the full curated shortlist; you choose which one draws on your usage, and they differ a lot. /model runs in the browser composer as well as in Discord, and the dashboard has a picker on the Your Ergod page that lists your tier's models cheapest first, so you can see how heavily each one draws before choosing. On any tier (Free included) you can bring your own Claude, GPT, Gemini, or OpenRouter key with /byok set (plus xAI / Grok). Your turns route through your own account, so the same usage goes about 5× further since the model bill is on your side.

Can I bring my own API key?

Yes, on every tier. Run /byok set in Discord to add a key for Claude (Anthropic), GPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), Grok (xAI), or OpenRouter. Validated on save and encrypted at rest. You can save keys for multiple providers at once and switch active provider with /byok use without re-entering. /byok on and /byok off toggle without losing your saved keys. While BYOK is on, your turns route through your own provider account (you pay the actual model cost) and only count about 1/5 as much against your Ergod usage — so the same usage goes about 5× further, on every tier.

Do I need to be a server admin? Can I use it in servers that don't have it?

No, and yes. Installing Ergod into a server takes Manage Server, but you don't need a server at all: open the install link and Discord offers "Add to my apps" alongside "Add to server". Add it to your account once and its slash commands work in every server you're in — even servers that don't have the bot — and in your DMs.

Can my whole team share one workspace?

Yes - that's a channel session. Anyone can open a shared workspace for a channel - a Free account hosts up to three sessions across servers, and its workspace lives on the host's storage - and the whole group reads and writes the same files together. Everyone joins free, no plan required; Pro lets you host several sessions at once. (Sharing YOUR OWN personal workspace with named collaborators is a different, Pro-gated feature - the dashboard calls it rooms and collaborators.) Perfect for D&D parties, study groups, and small team sprints.

Still not sure? Ask it something.

Pick a starter ask on the signed-out page, or sign in and type your own — your first message creates your workspace and the agent runs it for real.