Data, Privacy, and Trust

Data Ownership

Every word that any AI assistant writes to a user's Lore knowledge base belongs to the user. Users can read, edit, and archive any entry at any time through the Lore web interface, but cannot currently delete one. Users can export their whole knowledge base at any time, as one JSON file, from Settings in the web interface or with the Lore CLI. Lore does not claim ownership of user content.

Per-User Data Isolation

Each Lore user has a dedicated SQLite database file. User databases are not shared. One user's data cannot be accessed by another user's queries, API calls, or AI connections. The isolation is at the filesystem level — each user's knowledge base is a separate SQLite file stored at a path determined by the user's unique ID.

No AI Processing on Lore's Servers

Lore does not run AI models. All AI processing happens on the user's chosen AI provider (Claude, ChatGPT, OpenClaw, etc.) using the user's own AI subscription. Lore is a database with MCP tools — Lore stores and retrieves structured data, nothing more.

There is one exception. Accounts with semantic search — search by meaning rather than by exact words, the standard search on Lore accounts since 15 August 2026 — have some knowledge base text sent to VoyageAI, a third-party processor, to be turned into vectors and to order search results. Keyword-only search remains available on request, and accounts on it never have any content sent anywhere. What semantic search sends, and when sets out exactly what is involved.

No Training on User Data

Lore does not train models on user data. Lore does not use user content for analytics, advertising, or any purpose other than serving that content back to the user and their connected AI clients.

On keyword-only search, user data is not shared with third parties at all. The single exception is the semantic search described above, which sends section text to VoyageAI when entries change and, when a search by meaning runs, the search query, the candidate sections and each candidate entry's name, type and description — and nothing else, to nobody else.

Authentication and Security

• MCP authentication: AI clients connect using OAuth 2.1 (authorization-code flow with PKCE) — you sign in to Lore once, in your browser, and the client receives a scoped access token; no manual key handling. The MCP URL itself carries no credential: the older form with a token embedded in it is no longer accepted. All tokens are hashed before storage; raw tokens are never stored on Lore's servers, and from Settings you can sign out every connected AI client at any time (one action revokes all of them).
• Web authentication: Users log in to the Lore web interface with email and password, or with "Sign in with Google". Passwords are hashed before storage; Google sign-in uses the standard OAuth 2.0 authorization-code flow and Lore only ever receives a verified email address and a stable account identifier from Google — never a Google password.
• Encryption at rest & Google accounts: Each knowledge base is encrypted at rest with a per-user key. For email/password accounts that key is protected by the user's password, so it cannot be recovered on the server without the password (apart from an audited operator-recovery path). Because "Sign in with Google" proves identity but provides no such secret, a Google-linked account's key is instead protected by a key held on Lore's servers — meaning a Google-linked knowledge base is decryptable server-side. Accounts that use only email and password do not have this property, and Lore will not silently take that property away: signing in with Google using a verified email that matches an existing password account does not link the two or sign you in. Lore refuses and asks you to sign in with your password first, then connect Google from Settings — the only path that links Google, and it never converts a password account to the server-decryptable model without your password in hand. Users who prefer the stronger guarantee can simply leave Google unlinked.
• HTTPS: All connections use HTTPS with industry-standard security headers.
• CORS: Cross-origin requests are restricted to the Lore application origin.
• Rate limiting: Authentication endpoints are rate-limited to prevent brute-force attacks.

Data Portability

Users can access their data through:

• The Lore web interface (browse, read, edit, archive entries)
• Their connected AI clients (the AI can read entries via get_entry, list_entries, and search)
• Export: the whole knowledge base as one JSON file — every entry of every status with its sections and tags, the entry types, statuses, tags and settings, and by default comments and search vectors — from Settings → Export or the Lore CLI. The file is not encrypted.

The user's knowledge base is not locked to Lore. Entry content is stored as Markdown. If Lore ever shuts down, users will receive their full database export with advance notice.

Account Deletion

Users can request full account deletion, which permanently removes all entries, configuration, and account data.

What Lore Can See

Lore can see the entries that AI assistants write to the user's knowledge base and the metadata associated with those entries (types, tags, status, timestamps). Lore can see the user's KB configuration (entry types, tags, statuses, naming conventions). Lore cannot see the user's conversations with their AI assistant. Lore cannot see what happens in the user's AI client. Lore only sees the data that the AI explicitly writes to the knowledge base via MCP tool calls.