I'll say the quiet part first, because it matters: Chervil is a desktop browser, and I'm not changing that. The whole idea — a browser that composes pages, remembers what you read, reads your feeds, acts on your behalf — needs a real machine, your files, your keys, your history. That doesn't shrink onto a phone, and I'm not going to pretend it does.
But here's the thing. You're not always at your desk.
You're standing in a store. You're on the couch. You're waiting for coffee and a question pops into your head. And in that moment you don't want the whole browser — you just want to ask Sprig, the way you would at your keyboard.
So that's what 0.22.0 is. Not Chervil-on-mobile. Sprig on mobile.
Chervil Chat
Go to getchervil.com/chat on your phone. Sign in. That's the setup — there isn't any more of it.
You get a clean, full-height chat with Sprig. Ask anything. When the question needs something current — a price, a score, today's news, the weather where you're standing — Sprig searches the live web and lists the sources right under the answer, tap-through to any of them. It's the same assistant behind the desktop app's chat mode, running on the same live-grounded model. Just… in your hand.
No app store. No download. No API key to paste in on a tiny keyboard. You sign in, and it works.
Add it to your home screen
Here's the part that makes it feel real. Chervil Chat is a Progressive Web App, so you can install it straight from the browser:
- iPhone: Share button → Add to Home Screen.
- Android: the ⋮ menu → Install app.
Now there's a Chervil icon on your home screen, and tapping it opens Sprig full-screen — no address bar, no browser chrome, nothing to tell you it isn't a native app. Because as far as your phone is concerned, it is one.
What it deliberately isn't
Chervil Chat is just chat, and that's a decision, not a limitation I ran out of time to fix.
There are no tabs. Nothing composes a page. There's no omnibox, no feeds, no reading history, no everyday-browser furniture. All of that is the desktop app's job, and it's better for living on a real machine. Trying to cram it into a phone would make two mediocre things instead of one good one.
What travels well is the conversation. So that's what I let travel.
It's part of Pro
Chervil Chat runs on Chervil's own managed AI — you don't bring a key, you don't configure a provider, you don't think about any of it. That convenience costs me money to run, so it lives where the other managed, hosted things live: Chervil Pro.
If you're already Pro, it's yours right now, on every device you sign in from — nothing to enable. If you're not, the page will show you the door to it. And the desktop app stays exactly as free and open source as it has always been; nothing that used to be free moved behind the curtain.
Also in 0.22.0: the quick-chat that wouldn't sit still
One fix in the desktop app, and it's one some of you have felt.
When you pop the Ctrl+Shift+Space quick bar and tap 💬 to hold a real chat with Sprig, that little panel used to vanish the instant you clicked away — switched to another app, glanced at a second monitor — mid-reply. You'd come back and it was just… gone, answer and all.
It stays put now. In chat mode the panel floats above your work and waits, and it closes only when you close it — Esc, the ✕, or the hotkey again. Sprig gets to finish, and you get to read what it said. (The compact ask bar still tucks itself away when you click off, the way it should — that one's supposed to be quick.)
Chervil is free and open source. Grab 0.22.0 for your desktop — and then, on your phone, open getchervil.com/chat and put Sprig on your home screen.
Keep the browser where it belongs. Take the conversation with you.