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Privacy

llmwiki processes session transcripts that can contain PII, API keys, file paths, and internal URLs. Privacy is baked into the core design. This document is the full story on what llmwiki does to protect you — and where you're still responsible.

Hard rules

These are non-negotiable and enforced in both code and CI:

1. Redaction is ON by default. Username, API keys, tokens, passwords, and emails are redacted before anything hits raw/.
2. Localhost-only binding. The HTTP server binds to 127.0.0.1 unless you explicitly pass --host 0.0.0.0.
3. No telemetry, ever. The tool never calls home. No usage counts, no adapter pings, no error uploads.
4. No network by default. Everything runs offline after install. --synthesize is the one exception — it calls the local claude binary on your machine — and it's opt-in.
5. raw/, wiki/, site/, and .ingestion-state.json are gitignored. They never enter version control.
6. Privacy grep in CI. GitHub Actions fails the build if any committed file contains the maintainer's real username.
7. Gitleaks in CI. Secret scanning blocks merges on any detected API key, token, or password.

What gets redacted

Everything in this table is redacted at the converter layer — the moment each .jsonl record is parsed into markdown. The redaction happens before the file hits raw/.

All patterns live in examples/sessions_config.json under redaction.extra_patterns. You can add your own (company domain, customer names, internal hostnames, etc.).

What is NOT redacted by default

• File paths that are not under your home directory. /opt/foo and /var/log/bar are rendered as-is.
• Relative paths. src/main.py is rendered as-is.
• Tool arguments that aren't recognised. Bash commands get the first line preserved; Read/Write paths get the path preserved.
• Text content inside user prompts — because the prompt IS the signal. If you pasted a contract or a password into a prompt, it's in raw/.

This is why raw/ is gitignored and the server is localhost-only.

Adding your own redaction patterns

Edit config.json:

{
  "redaction": {
    "real_username": "your-unix-username",
    "replacement_username": "USER",
    "extra_patterns": [
      // defaults...
      "(?i)(api[_-]?key|secret|token|bearer|password)[\"'\\s:=]+[\\w\\-\\.]{8,}",
      "sk-[A-Za-z0-9]{20,}",
      "[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+",

      // yours:
      "acmecorp\\.internal",
      "ACME-[0-9A-Z]{6,}",
      "ghp_[A-Za-z0-9]{36}"
    ]
  }
}

Re-run ./sync.sh --force to apply the new patterns to existing sessions.

.llmwikiignore — coarse-grained exclusion

For entire projects, dates, or files you never want in the wiki at all, use .llmwikiignore. Gitignore syntax, one pattern per line:

# Skip a whole project
confidential-client/

# Skip anything from before a date
*2025-*

# Skip specific slugs
ai-newsletter/2026-04-04-secret-deal-*

Where your data lives

Everything with a ✅ stays on your machine. None of it is committed, uploaded, or synced.

The claude -p synthesis exception

llmwiki build --synthesize is the one feature that sends data off your machine. It does exactly this:

1. Builds a JSON summary of your projects (project names, session counts, dates, models — no content)
2. Calls the local claude binary (which Claude Code installed)
3. Gets back a 200–300 word markdown overview
4. Embeds it in site/index.html

Even this is off by default. You have to pass --synthesize explicitly. If you don't want any external API calls, just don't pass the flag — the home page still renders with project cards and stats, just without the synthesis paragraph.

Localhost server

llmwiki serve binds to 127.0.0.1:8765 by default. This means only processes on your machine can reach the server. Other machines on your LAN cannot see it. The browser tab is the only client.

If you want to share with a colleague on the same network:

./serve.sh --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8765

Note: this exposes site/ (which may contain redacted transcripts of your sessions) to anyone who can reach your machine. Don't do this on untrusted networks.

GitHub Pages (Self-Demo)

The .github/workflows/pages.yml workflow deploys a public demo site to https://pratiyush.github.io/llm-wiki/ on every tag push. It uses synthetic fixtures from tests/fixtures/demo/, not your real session history. Your actual wiki is never touched by this workflow.

Incident response

If you accidentally commit real PII or a secret:

1. Don't just push a fix. The history still has it.
2. Rotate the credential immediately if it's a key/token.
3. Use git filter-repo or BFG Repo-Cleaner to rewrite history.
4. Force-push to the branch.
5. Ask any collaborators to re-clone.
6. If the repo is public and the commit was pushed, assume the secret is compromised and rotate.

Questions?

Open an issue with the privacy label. Or email — but not with PII in the subject line.