Account & AI credits

Bureau's browser is free and local. You only need an account if you want the daemon's AI actions (the llm.ask / intel.judge reasoning seam, research_run, vision) without holding your own Anthropic key.

Two ways to power AI actions

The daemon resolves the model in a fixed order (see lib/anthropic-model.ts):

1. BYOK — your own key wins. If ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set in the daemon's environment, calls go straight to Anthropic. Free to Bureau, works offline, no account needed. This always takes precedence.
2. Proxied — Bureau Cloud. Otherwise, if you've run bureau link and stored a bur_ token, calls route through Bureau's metered proxy at POST <server>/bureau/v1/ai/messages (the token rides the x-api-key header). Credits are debited per real token usage.
3. Neither. No key and no link → no model. The reasoning steps degrade to a no-op instead of erroring, so browser/scrape/social tools keep working.

The link flow

1. Register on bureau.sh and start with your welcome credits.

2. Buy credits from Pricing when you need more (one-time packs).

3. Mint an API key on your account page. A bur_… key is shown once at creation with the ready-made command:

   bureau link --server https://api.bureau.sh --token bur_xxxxxxxx

4. Link the daemon by running that command. The bur_ token is stored in the macOS Keychain (service bureau-cloud); the server URL goes to ~/.agentproto/bureau/cloud.json. The token is never printed again, never written to the JSON.

For local development the server is http://localhost:3055:

bureau link --server http://localhost:3055 --token bur_xxxxxxxx

Managing the link

bureau link --status   # show the stored server (no secret)
bureau link --logout   # forget the connection + delete the Keychain token

The token must be a Bureau API key with the ai:proxy scope (it starts with bur_; bureau link refuses anything else).

Not to be confused with bureau login

bureau link (Bureau Cloud, the metered AI proxy) is a separate concern from bureau login (which stores a Guilde connection for bureau connect-token). They use different config and different token prefixes.

See Pricing & credits for what a call costs.