What Snotra can and cannot do

Snotra is a desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux. You open one folder, the file tree stays in view, and the chat works inside that folder with the model you connected. There is no web version and no terminal session: what the model does, it does through the tools below, and each of them can ask you first.

This page is the overview. Every row links to the page that explains it.

What it can do

Area	What Snotra does	Read more
Read	Lists folders, finds files by name, searches their text, reads them, outlines code and reads the text of PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files	Set up the built-in tools
Change	Creates and edits files in the open folder; before a file is replaced as a whole, a copy goes to the trash	See what Snotra changed
Run	Runs shell commands and Python code — off until you switch them on, and isolated in a sandbox on macOS and Linux	Run commands in the sandbox
The web	Searches the web (with a Tavily key) and fetches a single page	Set up the built-in tools
Images	Draws an image with your OpenAI key and saves it in the folder; reads screenshots you paste into a message, when the model understands images	Generate an image, Write a message
Dictation	Turns speech into text in the message field, with OpenAI access	Write a message
Memory	Keeps facts for this folder or for you across chats	Let Snotra remember
Skills	Follows instructions you give it as skills — built in, for one folder or for all of them — and can write a new skill into the open folder	Use skills, Let Snotra write a skill
MCP servers	Uses the tools of MCP servers you connect: tickets, a database, a calendar, anything a server offers	Connect an MCP server
Models	Works with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in the cloud, and with Ollama and MLX-LM on your machine	Connect a model
Questions about Snotra	Looks the answer up in this manual and links the page it used	Set up the built-in tools

What a chat may do on its own depends on its mode and on the risk class of each tool — see Why Snotra asks before it acts.

What it cannot do

No audio and no video. Snotra generates images, nothing else.
No mail, messages, calendar or tickets of its own. That comes only through an MCP server you connect.
No Office files or PDFs written. Snotra reads their text, but no tool creates or changes them.
No work outside the open folder unasked. A path outside it is asked about on a card in every mode; your home folder as a whole, the root of a disk and Snotra’s own storage are never offered.
No commands that keep running. Each command or Python call runs once and ends: nothing is kept between calls, nothing waits for input, nothing stays in the background.
No changes to its own settings. The model can suggest switching a skill or tool on for the chat, but only your click on that card does it — the mode, keys and lasting settings stay yours.

Without an open folder

You can chat without opening a folder, but the model then has no tools to change or run anything. It can still read the folders of the skills that are on, search the web, fetch a page, use MCP servers and look things up in this manual. A skill has nowhere to keep its data until a folder is open.

Limits

Limit	Value
Size of a file the model writes or edits	2 MB
Images per answer	4
Memory per level (this folder, everywhere)	8,000 characters
A page fetched from the web	one `http` or `https` address per call, text only, never an address on your local network

If it doesn’t work

The model says it cannot do something this page says it can. The tool is probably switched off or not set up. Click the skills pill in the chat bar: a missing tool is listed with the reason and a button to the setting.
A tool is missing although it is switched on. Some tools only appear once they are set up — web_search with a Tavily key, generate_image with an OpenAI key, run_python with Python 3. See Set up the built-in tools.