Privacy Modes

Edgebric keeps all documents on your local machine. Two privacy modes are available: Private Mode (conversations are not stored and query text is not logged) and Vault Mode (on-device encryption with client-side search). When neither mode is enabled, Edgebric operates in its default configuration with full features and conversation history.

Default Behavior

Full features, full conversation history.

• Queries are stored in your conversation history
• You can revisit past conversations and continue them
• Individual queries are never shared with other users

Best for: Day-to-day use, team knowledge bases, ongoing research.

Private Mode

Your queries are not stored in conversation history and query text is not logged. The system records that a query occurred for rate limiting purposes.

• Queries are not stored in conversation history
• Group chats and collaboration still work

How to enable: Toggle Private Mode in the chat interface before asking a question.

Best for: Sensitive questions you don't want stored in your conversation history (e.g., HR policy questions, health-related queries).

Vault Mode

On-device encryption with client-side search.

• Document text is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. Embedding vectors (numerical representations used for search) are stored unencrypted to enable similarity search.
• Vault queries are processed locally — search happens in the browser. The query text is sent to the local AI engine for embedding and inference, but no data leaves your machine or reaches external servers.
• Vault encryption keys are generated in the browser and never sent to the server. The key is stored in the browser's local storage. Note: the key is not password-protected in the current version.

How to enable: Create a Vault data source. Queries against vault sources automatically use Vault Mode.

Best for: Highly sensitive personal documents — medical records, tax returns, legal documents, private notes.

TIP

You can use both modes at the same time. Vault sources always use Vault Mode. For other sources, toggle Private Mode on or off per query.

Comparison

	Default	Private	Vault
Documents stored locally	Yes	Yes	Yes (encrypted)
Conversation history	Yes	No	No
Query text logged	Yes	No	No
Works with group chats	Yes	Yes	No
Network queries to server	Yes	Yes	No
AI runs on	Server	Server	Your device

Admin Controls

Admins can enable or disable Private Mode and Vault Mode for the organization in Admin > Settings > Integrations:

• Private Mode enabled — Members can toggle Private Mode
• Vault Mode enabled — Members can create Vault data sources

When disabled, the corresponding toggle or option is hidden from the interface.