The Herald, which brings the news you follow

What the Herald does#

A herald carried news between lords' courts. The Herald brings you the news you follow, from the games, apps, places and markets that matter to you, and sums up the long bits.

It needs nothing set up: it finds what's on this PC, and where it is, by itself. You choose which kind of news with its Variant.

The Herald comes with the Household license.

Its four variants#

Every variant also reads any other news feed you add. What each one reads, in detail, is in What each of the Herald's variants follows.

Switch variants in its Settings. Each variant keeps its own settings and news, ready for when you switch back.

How it works#

A round every hour for General purpose and the Financial guru, where the weather and the markets want fresh news, and every 6 hours for Gamer and PC caretaker. Or press Run now.

What's there the first time isn't news. The first look records what each source has, and only what comes after is news.

Some news is relevant, and comes first: patch notes for a game you've played in the last 30 days, a driver for your own graphics card, a stock alert, a weather warning, a security flaw in software you have, or anything that mentions one of your Keywords.

Summaries. A small AI model on this PC writes two or three sentences on long patch or release notes, labelled with where it was written ("note from the NPU, unverified"). Short notes are shown whole. Without the local AI, the news still comes, without summaries. See Set up the local AI.

Its page#

The Herald's page is at http://herald.localhost:18888/, and Open on its card in Castellan goes there.

• News: what's unread, relevant first. Each item says what's new and why it's relevant, then the notes in full or their summary, and a link to the source. Mark read on each, and Mark all read. Quiet items and those read lately are folded away below.
• Your variant's sections: your games, launchers and drivers; or the weather, your stocks and news sources; or your markets; or this PC's updates, apps and security flaws.
• Other feeds, each with its newest entry.
• Run now and Settings are in the title bar.

Castellan's card for the Herald shows which variant it is.

What it never does#

• It never installs or updates anything. It tells you; you update as you usually do.
• It never signs in anywhere, or posts anything.
• Nothing it shows is financial advice. Stock alerts are comparisons against your own rules, and a summary says only what the article says.

For developers#

When the Developer Herald is hired, it holds the Herald's office, and the Herald keeps working behind it with its own news. See The Developer Herald.