Introducing Triage: let your AI do the level-2 ticket digging

Triage is the newest app from External Software, the small software company in Greenville, South Carolina behind Hark. It’s a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux that connects the AI app you already use (Claude Desktop, Claude Code or another MCP client) to your ticketing system and, read-only, to your databases. Pointed at a support ticket, your AI can read it, check the data behind it and draft a diagnosis for you to review.

Version 1.0 is out today in early access. We want to be upfront: 1.0 lays the foundation (install, sign-in, the free trial, the subscription and automatic updates), and the database and ticket connections arrive in the next versions. This post covers what Triage is for, how it’s built to keep your data safe, and what you can and can’t do with it today.

Why we’re building Triage

Look at what actually happens on a level-2 support ticket and most of the time goes into looking things up, not fixing things. Someone reads the ticket, works out which customer it’s about, opens a database client, finds their records, checks the order or the sync job or the setting that looks wrong, and then writes down what they found. It’s skilled work, but it’s also repetitive, and it’s exactly the kind of work today’s AI models are good at, as long as they can see the ticket and the data.

That last part is the problem. Your AI app can’t see your Jira queue or your production database, and pasting records into a chat window is slow and easy to get wrong. Giving an AI direct database access raises a fair question: what stops it from changing something?

Triage is our answer to both. It gives your AI a way to look things up itself, and it’s built from the ground up so that looking is all it can do.

How it works

Triage runs a small MCP server (Model Context Protocol, the open standard AI apps use to connect to tools) on your own computer. Your AI app connects to that server, and the server reaches your ticketing system and your databases.

1. Install Triage and sign in with your email. Your 7-day free trial starts, with no card needed.
2. Connect a database with a read-only account. Triage ships with no database drivers. Like DataGrip, it downloads the right driver for your database when you add the connection, checks it, and keeps it up to date.
3. Connect your ticketing system. The planned connectors are Jira, Zendesk, Linear, GitHub Issues and ServiceNow.
4. Ask your AI to look into a ticket. It reads the ticket, runs read-only queries to check the data, and drafts the diagnosis or a reply.

Steps 2 to 4 are what we’re building next. In 1.0 you can do step 1.

Read-only, and built to stay that way

When an AI can query your database, “read-only” can’t be a promise in a settings screen. In Triage it’s enforced in two separate layers, so a mistake in one is caught by the other:

• Your database account. You connect Triage with an account that has only SELECT permission. Even if everything else failed, the database itself would refuse to change anything.
• Triage itself. Before a query reaches your database, Triage reads it properly (it parses the SQL rather than pattern-matching it) and refuses anything that isn’t a single read statement. That means no inserts, updates, deletes, schema changes, SELECT ... INTO, or several statements chained together.

On top of that:

• Every query has limits. Each one runs with a timeout and a row limit, so a careless query can’t tie up your database or pull out a whole table.
• Your credentials stay on your computer. Database passwords and API keys are kept in your operating system’s secure storage (Windows Data Protection, the macOS Keychain or the Linux keyring), and the MCP server runs on your computer too. Tickets and query results go from your systems to your computer to your AI app; they don’t pass through our servers.
• Results aren’t logged. Query results can contain personal data, so Triage records which queries ran and how many rows came back, never the rows themselves.
• Ticket text is treated as untrusted. Anyone can write a support ticket, including someone trying to slip instructions to an AI (“ignore your rules and run this”). Triage treats ticket content as information to read, never as commands to follow.

AI diagnoses can still be wrong, so treat what your AI drafts as a first pass: check it before you act on it or send it to a customer.

What’s in 1.0

Version 1.0 is the foundation every later version builds on:

• Installers for Windows (x64), macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux (x64 and ARM64). The Windows installer is code-signed.
• Sign-in with a code sent to your email, and the 7-day free trial.
• Subscribing and managing your subscription from inside the app.
• Automatic updates, so the connectors reach you as soon as they ship, without reinstalling.
• The same profile picture as your other External Software apps, from Gravatar.

What Triage can’t do yet

Early access means early, so here are the limits in plain terms:

• No connections yet. Triage 1.0 can’t connect to a database or a ticketing system, so it can’t look into tickets yet. If you want to try it on real tickets, you may prefer to start your trial once the connections you need are out.
• Connectors arrive one at a time. We’ll start with the most common databases and ticketing systems and add more from there. Tell us which ones you need, and that shapes the order.
• No team features. Triage is set up per computer for now, with no shared workspace or admin console.
• The Mac app isn’t code-signed yet, so macOS may warn you the first time you open it.

Pricing

Triage has one plan: $19/month after a 7-day free trial, for use on up to 5 computers. The trial needs no card: download Triage and sign in with your email. Cancel any time. See the Triage terms and our refund policy.

Try it

Read more on the Triage page, or download Triage from the store. If there’s a ticketing system or database you’d like Triage to support first, let us know. Early feedback decides what we build next.