VediramThe Levee App
A tour of the Levee desktop app: projects, the Easy chat and Advanced modes, Settings, Vediram Cloud sign-in, and the Startup Doctor
The Levee app is the window where you create projects, ask an AI agent to work on your files, answer its access requests, and see what it did. Open it from Start > Vediram > Levee. You do not need to be an administrator on your computer to use it.
The app does not make security decisions itself. A background Windows service, the Levee service, runs the sandboxes and applies your organisation's rules. If you close the app, running projects stay protected and keep their audit trail, but nobody can answer new access requests until you open it again. Unanswered requests are refused after five minutes (see Approvals).
What is on the screen?
| Area | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Sidebar (left) | Your projects, New project, and Settings. Hide or show it with Ctrl+B. |
| Project view (right) | The selected project: a chat with the agent in Easy mode, or a set of tabs in Advanced mode. |
| Banners (top) | Status messages, for example "Preparing container runtime" while Levee downloads what it needs, or a notice when the app loses its connection to the Levee service. |
| Access Request panel (slides in from the right) | Appears when the agent asks for something that needs your decision. |
Easy or Advanced mode?
Easy mode is a chat: you type a request and the agent works on it. Advanced mode adds a terminal and the project tabs. Switch in Settings > Experience > Mode. The choice only changes what you see; the protection, rules and audit trail are the same in both.
| Mode | What you see |
|---|---|
| Easy | A chat thread. Type in the message box and the agent works on your request inside the sandbox. Levee turns on your preferred AI tool automatically on a new project. |
| Advanced (default) | Project tabs: Console, Activity, Access Policy, Connected identities, Settings. The Console is a terminal inside the sandbox where you start the AI tool yourself. |
Some tasks live on the project tabs, so they are only in Advanced mode: sharing your files, revoking remembered decisions, connected identities, the Activity list, and turning AI tools on or off. Switch to Advanced, do the task, then switch back if you like.
In Easy mode, the agent's own "may I run this?" questions are answered yes automatically. This is safe because those questions only concern work inside the sandbox. Anything that reaches outside the project folder still goes through your organisation's rules and your approvals, and every step is recorded.
While Levee is still preparing on first run, the message box reads "Unavailable until the runtime is ready…".
What does the chat show me besides text?
Under each step the agent takes, the chat can show the files it used, the changes it made, and diagrams:
- File previews. Each file the agent read or wrote has a Preview button. Click it to see the file: text and code are highlighted, Markdown is formatted, and images appear inline. Nothing loads until you click, and each preview is recorded in the audit trail.
- Before and after changes. When the agent edits a file, the chat shows the change inline: removed lines and added lines, with a little context around them. A new file shows as all additions.
- Diagrams. When the agent answers with a diagram written in Mermaid (a simple text format for diagrams), the chat draws it as a picture. Mermaid diagrams inside a previewed Markdown file are drawn too.
Messages you may see instead:
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Preview not available for this file type | PDF and Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) are not previewed. Open them from the project folder. |
| Can't preview: binary or non-UTF-8 content | The file is not plain text. |
| File too large to preview | The file is over the preview limit (512 KiB). |
| File not available | Levee could not show the file, for example because it is outside the project folder. |
| Couldn't load file Retry | The app got no answer. Click Retry. |
| Diff too large to show | The change was too big to show (over 256 KiB). The file was still changed. |
Settings
Open Settings at the bottom of the sidebar.
| Card | Setting | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Theme: System, Light, Dark | Your choice only. |
| Experience | Mode: Advanced, Easy | See above. |
| Chat | Preferred agent | The AI tool Easy mode uses, for example Claude Code or Codex CLI. Only tools your administrator has published appear. If your organisation sets a default, the choice is locked and shows "Managed by your organization". |
| Vediram Cloud | Sign in / Sign out, Sync now | Connects the app to your organisation's Vediram account so it receives central rules. See below. |
| Plugins (preview) | The plugins your organisation turned on | Some ask for values only you can provide. See Plugins. |
| Workspace | Default project directory | Where new projects are created. Must be a folder on your own computer, inside your Windows user profile. Browse... opens a folder picker. |
| About | (read only) | Service connection, Service version, and UI version. |
| Proxies | (read only) | The Levee components installed on this computer and their versions. Useful when support asks what is installed. |
Which AI tool does Easy mode use?
The first rule that applies wins:
- Your organisation's policy sets a default (
container.defaultAgentTool). The setting is then locked. - Your own Preferred agent choice.
- The built-in order: Claude Code, then Codex CLI.
The Vediram Cloud card
If your organisation manages Levee from the Vediram Portal, sign in here with your work account. Sign-in opens your web browser; you never type your password into Levee.
Once you are signed in, the card shows your account and the result of the last check for new rules:
| Status line | Meaning |
|---|---|
Policy "<name>" applied | New or changed rules were downloaded and now apply on this computer. |
Policy up to date | Nothing changed. |
| An error message | The last check failed. The previous rules stay in force until a check succeeds. |
| Session expired, sign in again | Your sign-in expired. Click Sign in. |
The app checks for new rules when it starts, when it reconnects to the Levee service, every five minutes while it runs, and when you click Sync now. Administrators: see Connecting to Vediram Cloud.
What is the Startup Doctor?
Each time the app starts, it checks that Levee is healthy before showing your projects. The screen reads "Checking your environment..." meanwhile.
- If everything is fine, the app opens.
- If a critical check fails, a window titled "Levee can't start cleanly" lists each problem. Some have a Fix button; others need your IT team. Re-run checks tries again. Copy details for IT copies a report you can paste into a support ticket.
- If a less serious (degraded) check fails, the app opens and shows a banner, for example when an update to the sandbox image is available.
The Doctor also tries, silently, to start the Levee services if they are installed but stopped.
For your IT team
| Check | Severity | Title shown when it fails |
|---|---|---|
service.installed | Critical | Levee is not fully installed |
service.running | Critical | Levee service is not running |
service.connected | Critical | Can't reach the Levee service |
version.match | Critical | App and service versions don't match |
engine.running | Critical | Container engine is not running |
engine.feature | Critical | Windows 'Containers' feature is off |
disk.sufficient | Critical | Not enough free disk space |
image.present | Critical | Container image is missing |
runtime.provisioning | Degraded | Container runtime provisioning |
image.update | Degraded | Container image update available |
subsystems.degraded | Degraded | Some Levee features are unavailable |
The Fix for the Windows Containers feature needs administrator rights and usually a restart. For each check, see Doctor checks.
Why does the first start take a while?
The first time Levee runs on a computer, it downloads and checks the sandbox image, which is several gigabytes. The banner shows Checking, Downloading, Verifying, Expanding, and Installing container runtime with a percentage. Projects cannot start until it finishes. You can close the app meanwhile. See Container runtime.
Where does the app keep its settings?
Your app preferences (theme, mode, project directory) are stored in:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Vediram\Levee\app-settings.json
Deleting this file resets the app to its defaults. It holds no secrets and no policy.