What AIOS Can See

Updated September 2026

This SOP is about the AI side, which needs a paid plan. The Context panel and the USER/AI toggle are hidden on a free account, because they exist to decide what a model may read and a free account makes no model calls. The private-note encryption below is on every plan and is worth reading whatever you are on.

🔐 Private notes are encrypted on the server

Everything in Private is sealed on disk with a key derived from your password. AIOS derives that key when you sign in, keeps it for the session, and never writes it down — so a stolen disk, a copied backup or anyone reading the server's files finds ciphertext and a sealed key, and nothing that opens them.

What it does not protect: a server that is compromised while you are signed in. The key is in your session then, and no design that also lets AIOS show you the note can prevent that. It is worth knowing exactly which of those two you are covered for.

🔑 Make a recovery code — this is the one thing to do in advance

PRIVATE RECOVERY in the system-bar menu (behind ☰ on a phone) generates a code. Write it down somewhere that is not this computer. That is the whole job, and it takes a minute.

Why it matters: the key comes from your password, so a password reset cannot open your private notes — the old password is the key, and nobody, including whoever runs the server, has a copy. The recovery code is a second way in that only you hold. With one, a reset costs you nothing; without one, it costs you every private note you had.

It is shown once and it is not stored anywhere. AIOS keeps only a sealed copy of your key that the code opens — not the code. If you close that dialog without writing it down, generate another; nobody can look the old one up for you.

To use it: open the same dialog, choose I have a code and my private notes are locked, and enter the code with your current password. Your notes are re-sealed under the password you use now, so it only has to be done once. Typing it in lower case, or with spaces instead of dashes, is fine.

Generating a new one replaces the old one. That is what you want if you think the old one has been seen.

The cost, and you should know it before you use it:

• A password CHANGE keeps everything. The key is re-sealed under the new password; every private note stays readable.
• A password RESET needs your recovery code. Without one, a reset means "I do not know the old password" and nothing can open the old notes. AIOS does not delete the sealed key — it sets it aside, so they come back if you ever remember the old password or find your code — but until then they read as locked, and new private notes written after the reset work normally.
• If you lose both the password and the code, the notes are gone. That is the honest floor of any design where the person running the server genuinely cannot read your notes, and it is the same trade every password manager makes for the same reason.

Only Private is encrypted, and that is deliberate. Your daily notes, SOPs and projects feed the plan, the Brief, the calendar, search and the AI context, all of which are worked out on the server from the text. Encrypting those would mean losing them. Private notes already feed none of it, which is exactly why they are the ones that can be sealed at no cost.

A locked note is never shown as blank. If a session cannot open one, AIOS says so and refuses to save over it — a note that looked empty is a note you would type over.

🎯 Purpose

Know exactly what is sent to a model on your behalf, change it, and verify it rather than trusting it.

📌 Prerequisites

• The Context panel. On a desktop it is a column on the left. On a phone it is a full-screen drawer, reached two ways: CONTEXT in the prompt box the AIOS logo pulls down, from any page, or Context in the menu behind the Notebook heading.

🧠 The model never sees your vault

AIOS assembles the context itself, from your notes, and makes one call. There is no path by which a model browses your files, and nothing your browser sends is trusted as context — it sends only your message and which note is open.

But what AIOS does send, it sends to somebody else's computer. The one call goes to whichever AI provider is configured — Google, Anthropic, OpenAI or xAI — over an encrypted connection, and the text in it is out of AIOS's hands once it arrives. Their terms decide what happens to it next, not this product's.

So the rule worth carrying: anything you put in AI context, you are showing to that provider. The AI view (USER / AI above the note) shows exactly what would be sent, before you send it, and the Context panel is where you take things out. A private note can never be in there — that is what the whole private category is for.

🎛️ The Context panel

Three standing anchors, in this order:

Each row names the actual note it resolves to, and the name is a button — click it to open that note. Tick any other note to add it for the turn.

A private note is rendered disabled, not merely unticked. It cannot be added.

🔬 Verify it rather than trust it

The note viewer has a USER / AI toggle.

• USER is your note, editable, images rendered.
• AI shows everything that would be sent for your next message — not just the note you are looking at.

That is not a preview built to reassure you — it runs the same context assembly, the same trimming and the same prompt builder the real turn runs, so it cannot drift from the truth. It makes no AI request of its own.

It shows you:

Use it as an approval step. If the total looks high, the per-note list tells you which note is spending it — go untick that one in the Context panel and look again. On a private note it says, plainly, that nothing is sent.

🪜 Steps — change what is sent

1. Open the Context panel.
2. Tick or untick any listed note.
3. Switch the note viewer to AI to see the result.

🔍 How to verify

1. Open the Context panel; Last Updated is unticked, the other two ticked.
2. Click a note's name in a row — that note opens.
3. Open a private note and confirm its context checkbox is disabled and the AI input is greyed out.
4. Switch to the AI view on a private note; it tells you nothing is sent.

🚨 When it does not work

📖 Related

Notes, the Notebook and Search, Talking to AIOS

See what AIOS is All guides