Everything an administrator needs for the initial setup and ongoing operation of Workestral — from the first login to the fallback chain for free AI models.
Workestral runs as an ASP.NET Core application (.NET 10) on Windows and is published via
dotnet publish. For production use, a single Windows server/PC running Kestrel
or behind IIS as a reverse proxy is enough. A database is not strictly required — see
"Data storage" below.
As long as no user exists yet, Workestral automatically redirects every request to
/setup. The first user created there automatically becomes
Super Admin — no separate installation step or command-line call is needed.
From the second user onward, sign-in works normally via /login.
Tip: Create the Super Admin account with a real, permanently reachable email address — invitations and password-setup links for all future users go out from it.
The Store:Provider section in appsettings.json determines how
users, teams, runs and agents are stored:
data/ — no
database server required, ideal for smaller installations.Decide before the first start: switching later does not automatically migrate existing data.
Under /admin/users, an admin or team admin invites new users by email — they
receive a secure link to set their password. Every user belongs to exactly one team (or is a
teamless Super Admin) and only ever sees their own team's tasks and results. Roles:
Admin (Super Admin, sees/manages everything), TeamAdmin
(manages their own team), and regular users.
Under /agents you create as many AI agents as you like — each with a provider
(ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Ollama, OpenRouter, or ElevenLabs for speech), model name,
credentials and base URL. Tags (e.g. "Code", "Research", "Image") let the
planner automatically match agents to the right workflow steps; priority
controls the order in which agents are tried as a fallback if one doesn't respond. A
🔌 button tests the connection directly in the form.
OpenRouter continuously offers free models and is therefore visually
separated from paid providers on /agents (collapsible sections). Two
special features:
If a single team should use a different LLM fallback than the installation-wide template,
it can be set in the "LLM fallback for your team" section on /agents — normally
this section stays empty. In practice, only "Fallback provider" + "Model" matter; for
OpenRouter the central API key is automatically used here too, and the base URL is
pre-filled correctly.
For voice input (🎤) and output (🔊), an admin downloads Whisper models (speech recognition,
several sizes from fast to very accurate) and Piper voices (speech output, from the official
voice catalog, filterable by language) into a shared pool under
/admin/speech-models — including a progress indicator. Which model/voice is
actually used is then chosen by each team itself under /speech-settings, where
parameters (language, accuracy, speaking speed, etc.) can also be fine-tuned.
The Windows desktop app has its own, purely local speech-settings window — the selection there only applies to that particular machine, not the whole team.
For sending mail (templates, automatic replies, notifications), an SMTP
server is configured in the Email section of appsettings.json;
without configuration, Workestral only logs emails to the console instead of actually sending
them. For reading a mailbox (email automation), each team sets up its own
IMAP credentials under /email-accounts. Reusable subject/body templates are
managed under /email-templates.
Console output always runs. Enable additional file logging via
Logging:File:Enabled in appsettings.json;
Logging:LogLevel also controls verbosity there (a default plus per-namespace
exceptions), and FileSizeLimitMb caps the size of each individual log file.
Under /admin/logs, existing log files can be viewed directly (large files only
show the last portion, with a download link for the full file), and deleted individually or
all at once.
The desktop app connects to a Workestral server via a configurable server address. This lives
in an appsettings.json right next to the .exe and can be changed
there without rebuilding or republishing the app — handy for distributing it to multiple
workstations.
Windows, .exe, ~70 MB — a single self-contained file, no separate installation, no .NET runtime required, no administrator rights needed. Just download and run it.
Workestral is also available as a native Mobile app — with the same workflows, the same chat including voice input and output (via the phone's own built-in speech recognition), the same planner, and the same notes including formatting and dictation. Just like the desktop app, the server address can be configured so the app connects to your own Workestral server.
The app is currently rolling out and isn't available as a public download yet — contact us for early access.