How BrainLoop works: the 11 apps, what is AI and what stays on your device
By Thomas Lovas Lokoy
Founder & builder of BrainLoop (NorwegianSpark SA). I wrote this from the app's own source code, not from a marketing brief.
Last updated: October 2026 · By Thomas Lovas Lokoy, founder & builder of BrainLoop. Drafted with AI assistance from the product's source code and checked against it. Nothing here is medical or financial advice.
BrainLoop is eleven small apps behind one login (or no login at all). Five of them talk to an AI model. Six of them never do. Some keep what you type on your device; others forget it the moment you reload. People ask about all three of those things, so this is the honest map, written from the code that is actually running on brainloop.quest.
The eleven apps in one table
| App | What it does | Uses AI? | Where your data lives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle | Ask any question, get a reasoned answer | Yes (streamed chat) | Conversation is in memory only; gone on reload |
| Financial Advisor | General personal-finance guidance | Yes (streamed chat) | Conversation in memory only; gone on reload |
| Flashcards | Three built-in decks, or a generated deck on any topic | Yes (the Generate button) | Decks and score in memory only; gone on reload |
| Journal | Daily entry with a prompt and a mood | Yes (the New prompt button) | Entries saved in this browser (local storage) |
| Tarot | Draw three cards, Past / Present / Future | Yes (the reading) | Nothing saved |
| Trivia | Eight multiple-choice questions, instant feedback | No | Score in memory only |
| Word Puzzles | Unscramble ten programming terms | No | Score in memory only |
| Focus Timer | 15/25/45/60-minute work blocks, 5-minute break | No | Today's completed sessions saved in this browser |
| Habits | Tick daily habits, streak count, progress bar | No | Habits, ticks and streaks saved in this browser |
| Goal Tracker | Goals with a percentage you nudge up or down | No | Goals saved in this browser |
| Finance Dashboard | Income and expense list, savings rate | No | Transactions saved in this browser |
"Saved in this browser" means exactly that: the browser's local storage on the device you are using. There is no account-side copy and no sync between devices. More on that below.
The five AI apps, and what is actually sent
When you press something that calls the AI, your browser sends a request to BrainLoop's own server, which forwards a prompt to the AI provider (Anthropic) and returns the result. What goes in that prompt is narrow and specific per app:
- Oracle and Financial Advisor send the question you typed, trimmed to 2,000 characters. Each question is answered on its own. The model is not given your earlier messages, so it does not "remember" the conversation; if you want it to build on an earlier answer, restate the relevant part.
- Flashcards sends the topic you typed (up to 200 characters) and asks for six question-and-answer cards. The new deck appears as the first tab above the card.
- Journal sends only your current mood label (for example "Low") and asks for three fresh prompts. Your journal text is never sent to the AI. It stays in your browser.
- Tarot sends the names of the three cards you drew and their positions, and asks for an interpretation of each plus one short overall reading.
The Financial Advisor runs with instructions that it is an educational guide, not a licensed adviser, and the page carries the line "Not real financial advice. For educational purposes only." Treat it that way.
What happens when the AI is unavailable
Every AI app has a non-AI fallback, so the page still works:
- Oracle and Advisor fall back to a few built-in demo answers (on budgeting, saving, investing, the meaning of life and the future of AI); for anything else the fallback tells you it is a demo.
- Flashcards shows a notice and leaves the three built-in decks (JavaScript Basics, World Capitals, AI & Machine Learning) in place.
- Journal falls back to its five built-in prompts.
- Tarot keeps the traditional meaning printed on each card.
A daily limit is handled differently from an outage: Oracle and Advisor print the limit message in the chat instead of a demo answer, so you know why. The limits themselves are covered in the companion tutorial on Free, Pro and Max.
The six apps that never call an AI
Trivia, Word Puzzles, Focus Timer, Habits, Goal Tracker and Finance Dashboard run entirely in your browser. No request leaves the page when you use them, and they do not count against any AI allowance. Trivia's eight questions and the ten puzzle words are fixed lists shipped with the app, which is why they repeat; they are warm-ups, not endless question banks.
Where things are stored, precisely
Five apps persist to your browser's local storage:
- Journal entries (date, mood, text)
- Habits (names, today's ticks, streaks, and the date they were last saved)
- Focus Timer (the number of sessions completed today)
- Goal Tracker (goals and their percentages)
- Finance Dashboard (your income and expense rows)
Three consequences follow, and they are worth knowing before you rely on the apps:
- Different browser, different data. Open BrainLoop in Safari on your phone and Chrome on your laptop and you have two independent journals. Signing in does not merge them; an account changes your AI allowance, not where your entries live.
- Clearing site data erases them. If you clear your browser's storage for brainloop.quest, the entries, habits and goals are gone and BrainLoop cannot restore them, because it never had a copy.
- There is no in-app delete for journal entries, habits or goals at the moment. The Finance Dashboard does have a delete cross on each row. If you need a clean slate elsewhere, clearing the site's data in your browser is the only route today.
Flashcards, Oracle, Advisor, Tarot, Trivia and Word Puzzles keep their state only while the page is open. A generated flashcard deck is lost on reload (regenerating it uses one more AI generation), and an Oracle conversation cannot be revisited later.
What BrainLoop's server does record
For each AI generation, the server writes one usage row: who made it (your account id, or an IP-based identity if you are signed out), which app, your plan tier, the model used, the token counts and an estimated cost. That row is how the daily limits are counted and how the site-wide spend ceiling is enforced. It does not store the text of your question or the generated answer. The privacy page describes this log and the AI provider in more detail.
Local-only apps write nothing to the server.
Accounts: what they change and what they do not
All eleven apps are open without an account. The only page that requires signing in is the dashboard, which shows your plan badge, an Upgrade or Manage billing button, and the grid of apps. You can create an account with an email address and password (you confirm it through a link we email you) or with Google.
An account does three things: it moves your daily AI allowance from the anonymous 5 to the Free plan's 10, it lets you subscribe to Pro or Max, and it ties your AI usage to you rather than to an IP address. It does not back up or sync your journal, habits or goals; those stay on the device, on every plan.
The short version
- Eleven apps; five use AI (Oracle, Advisor, Flashcards generation, Journal prompts, Tarot readings); six never do.
- Your journal text is never sent to the AI; only the mood label is.
- Journal, Habits, Focus sessions, Goals and Finance are saved in this browser only. No sync, no server copy.
- Flashcard decks, chats, Tarot draws and quiz scores live only until you reload.
- The server logs who/which app/model/tokens/cost per AI call, not your text.
If you want to see the pieces in motion, the first-week walkthrough goes through Flashcards, Journal and Habits click by click. Or just open the apps and start with whichever one you came for.
