Privacy Policy

Effective Date: October 26, 2026

1. Core Philosophy

Heliox OS is a local-first, open-source desktop agent. This policy explains which data stays on the device, when an optional external provider can receive data, and which controls remain with the user.

2. Local-First Execution

The daemon, action execution, permission checks, audit records, settings, learned preferences, and supported local speech or vision components run on the user's device. Heliox does not operate a central prompt or telemetry service. Local execution does not by itself guarantee that every configured feature is offline: network actions, integrations, model downloads, and cloud model providers communicate with their respective external services when the user enables or invokes them.

3. Hybrid Cloud Mode (Optional)

Users can configure external model providers such as Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, or Meta. OpenRouter can route a request to the exact catalog model ID the user selects, including current DeepSeek IDs. Heliox 0.16.0 can also invoke an officially authenticated Codex or Claude Code CLI as a text-only planning helper without reading or copying provider OAuth files. Prompt context still reaches the selected provider under its account, retention, quota, and privacy terms. When an external provider is selected:

  • Prompts and the context needed for the requested task are sent directly from the device to that provider. Depending on the feature, context can include user instructions, extracted screen text, screenshots, files, or action results.
  • Heliox OS acts purely as a local interface client.
  • We do not intercept, store, log, or proxy your prompts or the responses through any central Heliox servers.
  • The provider's own privacy, retention, account, and billing terms apply.

4. Telemetry and Analytics

The current release contains no first-party analytics or automatic crash-reporting service. Local logs and audit databases are created so users can inspect execution and diagnose failures; they remain on the device unless the user exports or shares them. Operating systems, model providers, integrations, package registries, and downloaded dependencies can have separate logging or telemetry policies outside Heliox's control.

5. Credentials, Sensors, and Local Records

API credentials are stored through the operating system credential service: Windows Credential Manager, macOS Keychain, or a Secret Service-compatible keyring on Linux. Heliox fails closed when secure credential storage is unavailable. Camera, microphone, gaze, gesture, screen-supervision, and neural-research features are opt-in and can create local runtime state or consented recordings as described by their controls. Users should review those controls before enabling an always-on sensor.

6. Undo Copies, Task Receipts, and Your Day

Since v0.15.0, Heliox keeps the following personal stores on the user's computer. None of them is sent to a Heliox server, and no model reads the activity timeline, task receipts, or undo history to answer questions about your day.

  • Undo copies: before Heliox writes, moves, copies or deletes a file, replaces the clipboard, sets an environment variable, or changes the volume or brightness, it keeps what it needs to reverse that change. Copies are pruned after 7 days by default and when they pass 2048 MB. Clipboard text and earlier environment-variable values are kept in memory only and are gone after a restart.
  • Task receipts: an Ed25519-signed, hash-chained record of each task that ran actions. Parameters and outputs are stored only as SHA-256 hashes. The signing key is kept in the operating-system credential store, or in Heliox's private configuration folder where no credential store exists.
  • Activity timeline (off by default): which app and window title were in front, and when. It never stores pixels or screen text, and it skips password managers and private or incognito windows. Data is deleted after 7 days by default. The daily brief and usage nudges, also off by default, read from it.
  • Notes, reminders, voice shortcuts, saved app setups (app names only, without window titles or file names), usage nudges, and quiet hours.

Undo copies, receipts, and the timeline live in folders that Heliox actions may not read or change. Settings → Your data shows each store with its size and a Clear button, and "forget my activity from the last hour" removes that stretch of the timeline. Backups go to the Downloads folder and never include settings, the daemon token, API keys, the receipt signing key, or undo copies; the timeline is included only when the user ticks it.

Requests from a paired Air Handoff phone are off by default. A request waits on the computer for Run, the phone receives only the task's short encrypted result, and the phone can never approve or deny anything.

7. To-dos, Habits, Clipboard History, and Generated Passwords

Since v0.16.0, Heliox also keeps the following stores on the user's computer. None of them is sent to a Heliox server. Each appears in Settings → Your data with its size and a Clear button, and each is included in backups.

  • To-do list: the things on your list, done or not.
  • Habits: when you logged each habit.
  • Focus history: when each focus session started and ended.
  • Snippets: named text you saved to copy again. Text that looks like a password, key, token or card number is never saved as a snippet.
  • App reminders: reminders that wait for an app or site to come to the front. Heliox compares the front app name and window title with the waiting reminders every ten seconds and records nothing.
  • Focus distractions: the apps or sites you asked to hear about during focus. The window in front is compared with that list and then forgotten; nothing is blocked or recorded.

Clipboard history is off by default. When turned on, it keeps the last 25 pieces of text you copied for up to eight hours, in memory only: it is never written to disk or included in a backup, and a restart or turning it off forgets it. Nothing is kept while a password manager or a private browsing window is in front, and text that looks like a password, API key, token, private key or card number is never kept, saved as a snippet or read aloud. On Windows, Heliox opens the clipboard only after the system reports a change.

A generated password goes to the clipboard and nowhere else. It is not spoken, shown in the reply or chat, written to disk or kept in clipboard history.

Watchers, the computer health check, the file finder and focus heads-ups only read. Watchers look at process, battery, processor and Downloads-folder state, live in memory and give up after a day. The file finder reads folder listings and file dates in your own folders, skips the inside of code repositories and opens nothing.

8. Open Source Verifiability

Because the core engine is open-source, you do not have to trust our words blindly. You can independently verify our data routing and privacy claims by reviewing the underlying Python code and execution nodes directly at our GitHub Repository.

9. Contact Information

For privacy-related inquiries, open-source feedback, or to discuss our cryptographic protocols, please reach out via email: .