Security Model

Retrace is built around one promise: your terminal data never leaves your machine unless you explicitly export it.

Core guarantees

1. Local-first by default. Capture, redaction, storage, detection, and the web UI all run locally. The web UI binds to 127.0.0.1 only.
2. No telemetry. No analytics beacons, no phone-home, no CDN fetches. The UI is a single-page app served from your machine with zero external resources.
3. Redaction-first. Secrets are masked at the ingest boundary — tokens, keys, and high-entropy strings are replaced before storage. The original is discarded, never written to disk.
4. Append-only storage. Command and alert rows are immutable once written. No UPDATE/DELETE paths exist on the core tables, so recorded data cannot be silently altered.
5. Deterministic detection. Rule-based detectors run offline. Optional model analysis is opt-in and advisory only — and it runs against a local model server, never a cloud API.

What is redacted

Pattern	Example
API keys / tokens	ghp_..., sk-..., AKIA...
Passwords in commands	git push https://user:PASSWORD@...
High-entropy strings	Shannon-entropy flagging catches random-looking secrets

Reporting a vulnerability

Do not open a public issue. Report security vulnerabilities privately via GitHub Security Advisories:

https://github.com/Nooran3994/Retrace/security/advisories

See SECURITY.md for the disclosure process and supported versions.

Data retention

The Maintenance tab (or POST /api/maintenance/retain) prunes records older than a configurable window (30/60/90/180 days). Retention is reportable and safe — it never touches recent data.

Threat model notes

• Local attacker with file access can read the SQLite DB. The DB file permissions are locked, but full protection requires OS-level disk encryption.
• The web UI is bound to localhost and intended for single-user local use. Do not expose it to a network without adding authentication.
• Remote collection (SSH) is opt-in and explicit — you register hosts yourself; nothing connects outbound automatically.