Privacy and controls for Cairn.ink Memory

Once connected, the messages you type in Claude Code or Codex and the AI's text replies are saved to your Cairn. Passwords and keys are masked on your computer first (best effort). Cairn turns these conversations into memories your AI can find later.

Only conversation text is sent. Anything you or the AI write into the conversation counts, though, so pasted file contents, terminal output, file paths and repository names are sent with it.

The project folder you work in is turned into a code on your computer before it is sent, to keep each project's memories apart. The code does not contain the path.

Memories belong to your account alone. They never enter a collection unless you promote one to a card yourself.

Masking happens on your computer. Anything it recognizes is replaced with [REDACTED] before it is sent. It currently recognizes:

• Private keys: the whole block from BEGIN … PRIVATE KEY to END … PRIVATE KEY.
• Keys and tokens in common formats: API keys starting with sk-, rk- or pk-, GitHub tokens, AWS access key IDs, Cairn personal access tokens, Bearer tokens and JWT-style tokens.
• Passwords and keys written as a name and a value: a value of 8 or more characters after a name such as password=, api_key:, access_token= or client_secret=.

This is best effort, not a guarantee. A password written in an ordinary sentence ("my password is …"), a very short value, or a key in a format not listed above can be sent as it is. If you think a password or key was sent, revoke or replace it.

Each time you send a prompt, the Claude Code plugin and Codex mask it, cut it to at most about 4,000 characters, and send it to your Cairn to find related memories for the AI. Empty prompts are not sent.

You can turn off prompt recall in Codex on its own and keep saving; see Your controls below.

• Tool output. The results of the commands, file reads and searches the AI runs are not sent.

• Automated Codex runs (codex exec). From installer 0.5.0 they are not saved and get no prompt recall, by default. To save them, run the line below; replace on with off to go back to the default:

  npx @cairn-ink/memory config --codex-capture-exec on
• Conversations during a pause. Nothing is saved while paused, and nothing is filled in after you resume.
• Some messages Claude Code adds to the conversation itself: output from slash commands and local commands, system reminders, the summary written when a conversation is compacted, and Cairn's own status, pause and resume commands.

The Claude Code plugin sends usage stats by default. They contain only an event name, the plugin version, your platform and a random installation ID. They never contain conversation text, file paths or repository names.

As with any network connection, the service can see connection details such as your IP address.

To turn them off, type this in Claude Code and switch off "Anonymous product telemetry":

Codex sends no usage stats.

Pause and resume

While paused, conversations are not saved and memories are not looked up. In a terminal, run:

Inside Claude Code, type /cairn-memory:pause to pause and /cairn-memory:resume to resume. Use these when only Claude Code is installed.

When both tools share one memory, they share this switch: pausing one pauses both.

Pausing cannot take back what was already sent, and a request already on its way when you pause may still finish. After you resume, nothing from the pause is filled in, and the exchange in progress when you resume may not be saved either.

Turn off prompt recall in Codex

Codex stops looking up memories for each prompt and keeps saving. To turn it back on, replace off with on. The Cairn tools in Codex (/mcp) are not affected.

Claude Code has no separate switch yet. To stop its prompt recall, pause memory.

Codex's daily limit

By default Codex saves memories automatically up to 200 times a day. After that it stops saving for the day and starts counting again the next day. Claude Code is not affected. To change the limit (a whole number from 1 to 100000):

If today's count has already started, the new limit applies from the next daily reset. An existing install keeps the limit it already has.

Uninstall

To remove it from Codex, run the line below. It removes Cairn's automatic memory and the Codex sign-in the installer kept on this computer. The Cairn tools in Codex (/mcp) stay; to remove them too, run codex mcp remove cairn.

To remove it from Claude Code, run this in a terminal:

Uninstalling stops future processing on this computer only. Memories already saved stay in your Cairn, and this computer's sign-in is not revoked automatically. If you no longer use it, revoke it at cairn.ink/settings/tokens.

See and forget memories

Once signed in to Cairn, if your account menu has "What I know about you", open it to see what your AIs remember, and choose "Forget" on anything you don't want kept. If it isn't there, ask an AI connected to Cairn's tools to forget a memory; it uses the forget_memory tool.

After you forget a memory, Cairn stops returning it in recall. A conversation it was already sent into can still see it, and similar things you mention again, for example in other words, may be saved later.

How deletion works, including when data is purged from the database, is in the privacy policy.

Codex: the installer keeps the Codex sign-in in a file only your user account can read. It is not encrypted. It never goes into Codex's config.toml, command-line arguments, environment variables or logs, and it is separate from the sign-in for the Cairn tools in Codex (codex mcp login cairn).

Claude Code: the sign-in is a plugin setting marked as sensitive, kept by Claude Code itself. The installer never reads or copies it.

Because the Codex sign-in is not encrypted, any program that can read files as your user (or an administrator) can read it. If you think it was exposed, revoke it at cairn.ink/settings/tokens, then sign in again:

• The full technical document, in English, is on GitHub: docs/privacy.md in cairn-memory.
• How Cairn handles your account and the website: privacy policy.