Harfree AI. The AI workbench firms pay Harvey-level prices for, at no price at all.
Document review, drafting, research and chat over your files, with the model you choose. Harfree AI is our configuration of Mike, an open-source legal AI platform under the same license as Coil. Use it on its own, or connect it to Coil so it can work from your matters.
The software costs nothing. You pay your own model provider for what you use, or run a local model and pay nobody. We help you set it up, on a machine in your office or on a private server, and it is requested rather than bundled because it is a whole second system, not a checkbox.
- $0 for the software, AGPL-3.0
- 2 ways to run it: alone, or with Coil
- Yours model key, or a local model
- Word add-in that edits as tracked changes
Request Harfree AI
Tell us how you would use it and where it should run. A person replies with what it takes, and with the cost of a private server if you want one.
The work an associate with a good memory would do, over documents you hand it.
This is the class of product sold to large firms by the seat, at prices a solo practice cannot justify. The open-source version does the same jobs. What it lacks is a sales team.
Chat over your files
Ask questions of a contract, a deposition or a whole matter folder and get answers that cite the page they came from.
Document review
Read a stack of documents for the clauses, dates, parties or risks you name, and get the findings as a table you can act on.
Drafting
First drafts of letters, motions, memos and agreements from your instructions and your own prior documents, in your voice rather than a template’s.
Research
Working sessions over the material you give it, with the model you chose, and a record of what was asked and answered.
Connectors
Mike speaks MCP as a client. Coil is one connector; anything else that speaks MCP can be another, under whatever access you grant.
Your model, or none of theirs
Anthropic, OpenRouter, or a local model through Ollama so nothing leaves the building. The choice is a setting, not a plan.
On its own, or connected to Coil.
Both are the same software. The difference is whether the assistant can see into your practice management, and that is your decision, made with a token you can revoke.
Its own library, its own login
You upload documents to Harfree AI and work there. Nothing connects to anything else. This suits a firm that does not use Coil, or one that wants the AI kept at arm's length from the system that holds client money and deadlines.
- No Coil account needed
- Documents live in Harfree AI's own storage
- Any model provider, or a local model
Works from your matters
Coil exposes its tools over MCP. You create a token in Coil with only the scopes the assistant should have, paste it into Harfree AI as a connector, and the assistant can read matters, tasks, notes, time and document text, and log time back. Coil stays the record for money, deadlines and trust; no token can move client funds.
- Scopes you choose; read-only is a fine start
- Confidentiality mode: names become Client #4, substance becomes [redacted]
- An AI workbench link appears in Coil once you tell it where Harfree AI is
Free to use. We help you set it up, wherever you want it.
The software is free under the AGPL-3.0. Model usage is billed by your provider to you, at their rates, and a local model costs nothing per use. Those are the only two lines.
On a machine in your office
Docker on a Mac mini or a workstation with 8 GB of memory. Your documents never leave the building unless you choose a cloud model. We walk you through the install, or do it with you on a call, at no charge.
Ask for setup helpOn a private server we set up
A server of your own, reachable from anywhere, with a password in front and a certificate on it, handed over with the credentials. You own it and can hand it to your own IT person. We tell you what the server costs before it is ordered.
Ask about a private serverRun it yourself from the source
Mike's own quick start is a clone, two env files and docker compose up.
Our notes on pairing it with Coil, including the token scopes and the connector
settings, are in the Coil repository.
A Word task pane that applies AI edits as tracked changes.
The usual failure with AI drafting is the round trip: you reason in a chat window, paste a fresh draft back into Word, and the colleague who was mid-review loses their Track Changes and comments. Harfree AI's Word add-in edits the open document instead. Every suggested revision lands as a native tracked change, and you accept or reject it in Word's own review pane, the way you would a colleague's markup.
Chat with the open document, edit it in place
- Chat about the document that is open, with streamed answers
- Attach documents from your Harfree AI library for context, and Coil matter context when connected
- Apply suggested revisions as tracked changes, then accept or reject them
- Quick actions such as Proofread and Compare documents
- Chat history kept in your Harfree AI, or on the device only
Beta, sideloaded, by request
It is a beta task pane, not an App Store listing. You install it by adding a small manifest file to Word, on the desktop or in Word on the web, and it talks to your Harfree AI instance. Tracked-change review needs Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. Ask below and we send the manifest with the instructions for your setup, and set the instance up if you do not have one yet.
Request the Word add-inWhat it is not.
- It is not part of Coil. It is a second system with its own login, about eight containers, and it needs a machine with 8 GB of memory. That is why it is requested rather than switched on.
- It is not a lawyer. It drafts and reads; you decide. Everything it produces is a draft until a person has read it.
- It does not keep secrets from the model you pick. A cloud provider sees what you send it. Coil's confidentiality mode limits what the connector hands over; uploads to Harfree AI itself go to the model as they are. A local model is the way to send nothing anywhere.
- Connected mode does not yet pass document files. The assistant gets metadata and extracted text from Coil, not the original file. A document that needs editing goes through the Word add-in, or is uploaded to Harfree AI's own library.
Questions we get asked.
Is Harfree AI actually free?
The software is. Mike is open source under the AGPL-3.0, and Harfree AI is our configuration of it, published the same way. What you pay is your own model provider for what you use, or nothing if you run a local model. Setup help is free. If you want us to run a private server for you, that costs what a server costs, and we will tell you the number before anything is ordered.
Do I need Coil to use it?
No. Standalone, Harfree AI has its own login and its own document library and never touches Coil. Connected, it can read the matters, tasks, notes, time and document text in your Coil under a token whose scopes you choose, and log time back. Either way Coil stays the record for money, deadlines and trust.
What does the model see?
Whatever you give it, sent to whichever provider you chose, so pick the provider the way you would pick a vendor. Connected to Coil with confidentiality on, the assistant gets Client #4 and [redacted] in place of names and matter substance, and it is told those are placeholders.
Why is it requested separately instead of included?
It is a separate stack: a web app, an API, a Postgres database with its own auth, and object storage, about eight containers to Coil’s one, and its own login. That is a fine thing to run on a machine you already manage and an unfair thing to make every solo self-hoster carry. So Coil has a door to it, and you ask for the door when you want it.
Does it work inside Microsoft Word?
Yes, through a beta task-pane add-in. It chats about the open document and applies its suggested revisions as native tracked changes, which you accept or reject in Word's review pane. It is sideloaded with a manifest file rather than installed from the store, needs Word 2021 or Microsoft 365, and talks to your Harfree AI instance, so it is set up as part of your request.
Can I run it on a Mac mini in the office?
Yes. Docker on a machine with 8 GB of memory is enough. That is the setup we recommend for a firm that wants its documents to stay in the building, and it is the setup we help with for free.
Ready? Request Harfree AI, or read about every Coil tool by phase.