Security & Privacy
Your personal data is yours. It lives on your machine. Cloud backup is end-to-end encrypted — we store it but we literally cannot read it.
Three layers of protection
Your Machine
All user data lives on your machine in a local SQLite database. This is the source of truth. Your agent reads and writes here for all operations. Works fully offline.
Encrypted Cloud
End-to-end encrypted backup. The encryption key is derived locally from your API key + a machine secret. It never leaves your machine. We store encrypted blobs we literally cannot read.
Collective Skills
Anonymized procedural knowledge only. Zero user data. No names, files, conversations, or business information. Just how to do things. Agent IDs are SHA256 hashed.
Defense in depth
JWT authentication
All API endpoints protected with HMAC-signed JWT tokens. 24-hour expiry with 30-day refresh tokens. WebSocket connections verified on handshake.
Rate limiting
Per-IP rate limiting on all endpoints. 60 req/min general, 20/min commands, 5/5min auth attempts. Prevents abuse and brute force attacks.
Prompt injection defense
Every user command scanned for injection patterns before reaching the AI. Role override attempts, instruction manipulation, and control characters detected and flagged.
Sensitive site guardrails
Computer Use checks every URL. Banking, government, and payment pages are screenshotted for your review instead of interacted with directly.
Comprehensive audit log
Every security-relevant event logged: auth attempts, rate limits, injection attempts, sensitive site encounters, spending approvals, code evolution proposals.
Field-level encryption
Sensitive fields (call transcripts, conversation content) encrypted at rest using Fernet symmetric encryption. Key derived via PBKDF2 with 100k iterations.
PulseAssist vs. cloud AI assistants
| PulseAssist | Cloud AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Your data stored on | Your machine | Their servers |
| Cloud backup encryption | E2E — we cannot read it | At rest — they can read it |
| Personality/memory data | Local only, never uploaded | In the cloud, used for training |
| Data ownership | You own everything | License granted to provider |
| Offline functionality | Full agent operation | None |
| Audit trail | Local, inspectable | Provider-controlled |
| Data deletion | Delete local files | Request and hope |