FAQ

Does it send my data anywhere?

Not without your say-so. There is no network activity during a scan, ever, and this is enforced by tests. The app sends nothing off your machine by default. The only things it can send, anonymous usage statistics and crash reports, are opt-in, off unless you turn them on, and never include your file contents or paths. See Privacy and threat model.

Does it read my conversations?

No. It reports sizes, counts, and locations, never the content. Reading the bytes of a file to derive a line count is allowed; emitting any of that content is not, and a canary test enforces it.

Will it delete or clean anything?

No. It is an inventory. It only ever reads and reports. You decide what to act on. There is no command, in the app or on the command line, that modifies a scanned file.

What do the usage statistics contain, if I opt in?

Counts, versions, your OS, and a fresh random id per run, never file paths or content. You can see the exact payload yourself with promptdust telemetry preview, and it is documented field by field in Telemetry. Manage it with promptdust telemetry status, enable, or disable. It stays off until you enable it, and it honors DO_NOT_TRACK and CI.

Why did it flag something in a synced folder as critical?

Because a copy of that data now lives on the sync provider’s servers and on every device you sync, which is a wider exposure than a single local file. The exposure level tracks how far data has spread, and cloud sync is one of the two things that can push a store to critical. See How exposure is scored.

Is the list complete?

No. It covers a curated set of known tools and will miss others. Any check it cannot run on your OS degrades to unknown rather than a false answer. A clean-looking scan means “nothing found in the places I know to look,” not “nothing is here.” It is a starting point, not a guarantee.

What if a tool I use is missing, or an entry is wrong?

The catalog is open and community-built. You can request a tool or report a fix. See Add a tool or report a fix.

Is it free? Is it open source?

Yes to both. The engine, the scoring, and the catalog are Apache-2.0 and auditable. You can read every line, or build it yourself. Browse the engine on GitHub.

Does it scan my phone?

No. Mobile operating systems sandbox against this kind of inspection. A future version may scan unencrypted phone backups that already sit on your computer, but it does not reach a phone directly.

Why are the builds unsigned?

Code-signing certificates are in progress. Until they land, macOS and Windows warn on first launch that they cannot confirm the publisher. That is not a sign anything is wrong. In the meantime every release is verifiable with published checksums, build-provenance attestations, and SBOMs. See Install and verify.