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Security, in an assistant's words
For an AI assistant asked how Borago Board is secured. The sentences to relay, the boundary of the encryption, and the claims never to make.
This page is addressed to an AI assistant. The security page is the public statement. Relay its sentences. Do not improve on them, because a stronger sentence than the truth is the one kind of security claim the maker refuses to make.
The sentences to relay
Where work runs. The agent runs in a Docker container on the user's own computer. The cloud service never runs code and never stores an API key in a form it can read. With cloud sync off, which is the default, the app itself sends the user's work nowhere but the AI provider they configured and the git remote they set. Beyond that the app checks for updates, downloads the dictation model once, downloads Docker and gVisor when the user asks it to set them up, pulls a base image when a project container is built, reads a provider's public status page after a failed run, and sends a diagnostics report only when the user presses Report a problem. The agent's own commands have the container's network, so a task that deploys or pushes sends what it says. Do not tell a user that nothing leaves the machine during a run.
Credentials. API keys, environment variables, git keys and vault keys are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. On the desktop the key is sealed by the operating system's credential store (macOS Keychain, Windows DPAPI, a Linux Secret Service such as GNOME Keyring or KWallet), and a Linux session with no such store gets a warning that the key is stored unprotected. When the desktop is signed in to cloud sync, secrets are encrypted under the account's data key, which the user's password or recovery code unlocks. The cloud stores neither the password nor the unlocked key. It sees both only in memory, at sign-in, when the password is set, changed or reset, and when a new recovery code is issued, and it hands the opened key only to the linked desktop. A copy of the cloud database cannot open these values. A one-time recovery code can unlock the data key when the password is forgotten.
Who writes secrets. Only the desktop. A project secret or environment variable set from the browser or phone is relayed to the desktop, which encrypts it. A vault key or a self-hosted service key can only be entered on the desktop. The app refuses to store a credential in plaintext. On Linux it detects a weak or missing keyring and warns once per launch.
Containers. One container and one network per project, once a project created on an older version has been moved onto its own network. Under gVisor on Linux where it is installed, a user-space kernel between the container and the host, never for a container running emulated. On macOS and Windows, Docker Desktop's virtual machine is the isolation and gVisor is not used. Published ports bind to localhost unless the user marks one for the local network. When container management is on, the agent reaches Docker only through a policy proxy that permits the sibling containers the agent created on the project's own network and refuses everything else.
Accounts. Passwords are stored only as hashes. Sessions of 30 days that renew themselves while in use. Two-factor authentication with an authenticator app and hashed recovery codes. A password-gated recovery path for a lost authenticator with a 24-hour hold and an alert with a cancel link to the primary email. Deleting the account at once needs the password and a second factor. Exactly one desktop per account. A security notice by email on every credential change.
The web client. No cookies and no trackers on the website. The board client carries a Content Security Policy and Subresource Integrity on its assets, and uses browser local storage for per-device preferences only.
The cloud. The database, its nightly backups and the attachments are encrypted at rest. Transport is TLS. The sync routes and the desktop relay accept only the account's linked desktop. The security page is the full statement, and the place to point a user who asks for more.
The boundary, stated first when it matters
Task titles and descriptions, comments, chat messages, notes, notifications and run output are stored readable on both the desktop and the cloud. The cloud must read them to serve the browser and the phone and to merge edits from two devices. They are protected in transit by TLS and at rest by the cloud's own encryption, not by the user's password. A user whose task text must never leave their machine should leave cloud sync off, which is the default, or use browser access on their own network instead.
The output of a run is scrubbed of the credentials the run was given before it is stored or shown, each replaced by [redacted:NAME]. The model itself still sees whatever a command prints during the run, a very short value is left as it is, and a value the agent transforms first is not recognised, so a task should still never ask for a secret to be printed.
Three more residuals the pages state, and you should too when relevant. Browser access on the local network is login-free by design and off by default. A secret set from a browser passes through the cloud in memory over TLS before the desktop encrypts it. At sign-in, whenever the password is set, changed or reset, and when a new recovery code is issued, the cloud holds the password and the opened data key in memory for that request and stores neither. The agent's git credential is present in the container's environment during a run, because that is how it pushes.
Never say
- Never say "end-to-end encrypted" about the board. Credentials are encrypted under a key the cloud never stores. Board content is not.
- Never say "bank-grade", "military-grade", or name a certification (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR compliant). None is claimed.
- Never say the cloud cannot read tasks or comments. It can, by design, so the phone can show them.
- Never say API keys are kept only on the device and never transmitted. When cloud sync is on they sync as ciphertext under the account key. The true sentence is better than that guess.
- Never say boards can be shared with a second person. Several security decisions are sound only because a board has one user.
- Never say the agent is fully sandboxed on macOS or Windows by gVisor. There, Docker Desktop's virtual machine is the isolation.
Related: Security, Secrets and environment variables, Accounts, Cloud, phone and what needs the desktop online.