Security

We take security seriously and appreciate responsible disclosure.

Reporting a Vulnerability

Please report security issues via GitHub Security Advisories:

Report a vulnerability

Include as much detail as possible:

• Description of the issue and impact
• Steps to reproduce
• Affected version(s)
• Any proof-of-concept code

We will acknowledge receipt, investigate, and work toward a fix.

Security Model

Lore is local-first:

• All data stays on your machine by default - There is no hosted service and no account
• No telemetry - Lore doesn’t phone home or collect usage data
• SQLite storage - Standard file permissions protect your local database
• Opt-in, encrypted sync - When you enable sync, sessions are encrypted on your machine before they touch git

Data Sensitivity

Session data may contain sensitive information from your AI conversations:

• Code snippets and file contents
• Error messages with stack traces
• Environment details

Use lore export --redact when sharing sessions to automatically remove common secrets (API keys, tokens, credentials).

Sync Encryption

Lore syncs reasoning history over git rather than through a server. Content is encrypted end to end, so the git host (GitHub, GitLab, or anything else) only ever sees ciphertext. This is zero-knowledge to the host.

How Encryption Works

1. Key derivation - Your passphrase is combined with a random salt using Argon2id to derive a 256-bit key.
2. Encryption - Each session record (messages, commit links, tags, annotations, and summary) is gzipped, then encrypted with AES-256-GCM.
3. Storage - Only ciphertext is written to the git store, whether that is the per-repo ref refs/lore/sessions or the global store at ~/.lore/sync.

Component	Algorithm	Purpose
Key derivation	Argon2id	Derives the encryption key from your passphrase
Symmetric encryption	AES-256-GCM	Encrypts session content, with tamper detection
Salt	Random	Makes key derivation unique per store (stored in plaintext; a salt is not secret)

What Is and Is Not Encrypted

The full session record is encrypted. A minimal plaintext metadata file per session lets the store be listed without the passphrase. It contains only:

• Session id
• Tool name
• Timestamps
• Message count
• Machine id
• Git branch

It deliberately contains no file paths and no message content.

Key Storage

The passphrase itself is never stored. After setup, the derived key is cached locally:

• OS keychain when use_keychain is enabled (macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, Linux Secret Service)
• File backend otherwise, as a 0600 file under ~/.lore/sync-keys/

There is no passphrase recovery

Lore has no server and no way to recover a lost passphrase. If everyone with the passphrase loses it, the encrypted store cannot be decrypted. Keep it in a password manager.

Team Sharing

Sharing reasoning with a team needs no accounts and no per-seat fee:

1. Share the repo - Normal git access (clone and push).
2. Share the passphrase out of band - A password manager or a secure message.

A teammate who has both can run lore sync setup, then lore sync, and read the team’s reasoning history and run lore blame.

Supported Versions

Security updates are provided for the latest minor version. We recommend keeping Lore up to date.

Version	Supported
0.2.x	Yes
< 0.2.0	No