Design primitives
AI tools are learning to remember you. Most keep that memory on their own servers, where you cannot read it, move it, or delete it.
loci keeps it in files you own. These are the rules that make that true, the ones we will not trade away. They live in how loci is built, not in a policy.
Four work today, three are in progress, one is not built yet. Checked against the code on 1 November 2026.
Plain text
works todayYour memory is markdown files in a folder you choose. Any AI that reads files can use it. No database, no build step. The tool never knows more than you can read. What an AI keeps on its own side is outside these files; keep your memory yours shows how to close that gap.
Local first
works todayThe command-line tool makes no network calls of its own and sends no telemetry. No account, no cloud, and no loci server that could keep a copy.
Yours to carry
works todayMIT licence. Copy the folder to another machine or another AI and it works the same. There is nothing to export, because nothing is locked in.
Free to own
works todayNo payment, no account, no sign-in. Owning your memory will never sit behind a paywall or a login.
Signed by you
in progressYour records must carry your own signature, so anyone can check they came from you and were not changed. The open code can already check a signed record (loci wal verify, not yet in a release). Making your own key and signing with it is not built yet.
Stops instead of leaking
in progressWhen loci cannot protect you, it must stop and say why, never fall back in silence. Most commands already do. Three places in the command-line tool still fall back without a warning; until they are fixed, this rule is in progress.
Local models
in progressEverything must be able to run on your own machine, with no AI company in the loop. The setup step for a local model (Ollama) exists. The tool does not run the model yet. When it does, an offline model will stop the tool, never send your words to someone else's server instead.
Private on the wire
not built yetToday nothing leaves your machine, so there is nothing to intercept. When sync arrives, it will travel over transport that hides who talks to whom (a mixnet), or it will not travel at all.
The roadmap is public, and so is every change to this page: if a rule changes, you can see when.
A memory you cannot read is not yours.