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docs(faq): clarify data-privacy answer re: external LLM providers#798

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docs(faq): clarify data-privacy answer re: external LLM providers#798
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Summary

The FAQ's "Does GAIA send my data anywhere?" answer said a flat No, but that only holds when you're on the default Lemonade backend. If you configure the Claude API or OpenAI provider via settings, prompts leave the machine. Updating the lead to "Not by default" and adding a one-sentence caveat closes a minor-but-real accuracy gap.

Test plan

  • Skim the rendered FAQ section on the docs site after merge — confirm the caveat reads naturally in Mintlify rendering
  • Primary test purpose: validate that .github/workflows/claude.yml (merged in ci(claude): migrate to claude-code-action v1.0.99 + fix issue-handler hang #797) produces a real review comment on this PR via pull_request_target — the first post-merge validation that the v1.0.99 migration works end-to-end.

The "Does GAIA send my data anywhere?" answer said a flat "No" but that
only holds with the default Lemonade backend. If a user configures the
Claude API or OpenAI provider via settings, prompts do leave the
machine. Change the lead from "No" to "Not by default" and add a caveat
paragraph naming the two external providers that can opt-in to cloud.

Closes a minor-but-real accuracy gap in the privacy section.
@github-actions github-actions bot added the documentation Documentation changes label Apr 17, 2026
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Summary

Tight, well-scoped documentation fix. The FAQ's flat "No." overstated GAIA's data-privacy posture — it's only true on the default Lemonade backend, and the repo ships real external providers at src/gaia/llm/providers/claude.py and src/gaia/llm/providers/openai_provider.py. Reframing as "Not by default." plus a one-sentence caveat closes the accuracy gap without undermining the local-first positioning.

Issues Found

None.

Strengths

  • 🟢 Accurate and precise framing. "Local-first is the default; cloud is opt-in" is the right summary of the actual architecture (src/gaia/llm/factory.py provider selection). The fix corrects a real gap without overcorrecting into FUD about the default path.
  • 🟢 Minimal diff, surgical scope. 4 additions / 2 deletions, single file, no collateral changes — exactly what a docs accuracy fix should look like. Existing link to /plans/desktop-installer and Mintlify <Accordion> structure preserved.
  • 🟢 Qualifier placement. Adding "with the default Lemonade Server backend" to the offline-capability sentence is the right spot — previously that sentence would have been technically false for Claude/OpenAI users too.

Verdict

Approve. Ships a real accuracy improvement to a user-facing FAQ with zero risk. The PR also doubles as the first post-merge validation of the claude.yml v1.0.99 migration from #797, which is a useful secondary signal — this comment itself is the evidence that pull_request_target review generation is wired up correctly.

@kovtcharov
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@claude quick check — is the FAQ caveat phrasing neutral enough? Or does "cloud is opt-in" sound like we're steering users away from cloud unnecessarily?

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Skimmed the diff (docs/reference/faq.mdx:33-38) — short answer: phrasing is fine, slight lean possible, easy to neutralize if you want.

Why it reads neutral:

  • "opt-in" is the correct technical descriptor for default-off + user-enables. It's the same word used in privacy-positive contexts (analytics opt-in), so pairing it with cloud providers doesn't inherently moralize — it describes the mechanism.
  • The caveat body above it is factual and non-judgmental ("prompts and responses... are sent to the provider you selected"). No "beware", no "warning", no recommendation either way.

Where the mild lean comes from:

  • Because this lives under a data-privacy question, any framing of cloud inherits a privacy-risk frame by context. The "Local-first is the default" phrasing reinforces local as the protagonist.
  • "opt-in" is marginally warmer toward local than a fully symmetric wording would be.

If you want it more neutral, two options:

  1. Drop the summary sentence — the caveat paragraph already conveys the full picture without editorializing:

    **Caveat:** If you explicitly configure an external LLM provider (Claude API or OpenAI)
    via the provider settings, prompts and responses for those sessions are sent to the
    provider you selected.
    
  2. Swap to symmetric framing:

    GAIA supports both local (Lemonade Server, default) and external (Claude API, OpenAI)
    LLM providers — pick based on your privacy, cost, and capability tradeoffs.
    

My read: current wording is shippable. Option 1 is the smallest change if you'd rather not have any positioning language in a privacy FAQ. Option 2 if you want to actively signal "cloud is a first-class choice."

🟢 Minor — not a blocker either way.

@kovtcharov kovtcharov enabled auto-merge April 17, 2026 21:48
@kovtcharov kovtcharov added this pull request to the merge queue Apr 17, 2026
Merged via the queue into main with commit 4119d56 Apr 17, 2026
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@kovtcharov kovtcharov deleted the kalin/test-claude-post-merge branch April 17, 2026 21:49
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# GAIA v0.17.3 Release Notes

GAIA v0.17.3 is an extensibility and resilience release. You can now
package your own agents into a custom GAIA installer and seed them on
first launch, point GAIA at alternative OpenAI-compatible inference
servers from the C++ library (Ollama, for example), and start from three
new reference agents (weather, RAG Q&A, HTML mockup) that execute
against real Lemonade hardware in CI. It also hardens the RAG cache
against an insecure-deserialization class of bug (CWE-502) — all users
should upgrade.

**Why upgrade:**
- **Ship your own GAIA** — Export and import agents between machines,
follow a new guide to produce a custom installer that seeds your agents
on first launch, and on Windows install everything in one step because
the installer now includes the Lemonade Server MSI.
- **Work with alternative inference backends** — The C++ library now
preserves OpenAI-compatible `/v1` base URLs instead of rewriting them to
`/api/v1`, so servers that expose the standard `/v1` path (Ollama, for
example) work out of the box.
- **Start from a working example** — Three new reference agents (weather
via MCP, RAG document Q&A, HTML landing-page generator) with integration
tests that actually execute against Lemonade on a Strix CI runner.
- **Safer RAG cache** — Replaces `pickle` deserialization with JSON +
HMAC-SHA256 (CWE-502). Unsigned or tampered caches are rejected and
transparently rebuilt on the next query.
- **Better document handling** — Encrypted or corrupted PDFs now produce
distinct, actionable errors (`EncryptedPDFError`, `CorruptedPDFError`)
instead of generic failures, and the RAG index is hardened for
concurrent queries.

---

## What's New

### Custom Installers and Agent Portability

You can now package a custom GAIA installer that ships with your own
agents pre-loaded, and move agents between machines with export/import
(PR #795). On Windows, the official installer now includes the Lemonade
Server MSI and runs it during install, so a fresh machine has the
complete local-LLM stack after a single download (PR #781).

**What you can do:**
- Export an agent from `~/.gaia/agents/` to a portable bundle with `gaia
agents export` and import it on another machine with `gaia agents
import`
- Follow the new custom-installer playbook at
[`docs/playbooks/custom-installer/index.mdx`](/playbooks/custom-installer)
to distribute GAIA with your agents pre-loaded — useful for workshops,
team deployments, and internal tooling
- On Windows, the installer now includes Lemonade Server — no separate
download for a complete first-run experience

**Under the hood:**
- `gaia agents export` / `gaia agents import` CLI commands round-trip
agents between machines as portable bundles
- First-launch agent seeder
(`src/gaia/apps/webui/services/agent-seeder.cjs`) copies
`<resourcesPath>/agents/<id>/` into `~/.gaia/agents/<id>/` the first
time the app starts
- Windows NSIS installer embeds `lemonade-server-minimal.msi` into
`$PLUGINSDIR` and runs it via `msiexec /i ... /qn /norestart` during
install (auto-cleaned on exit)

---

### Broader Backend Compatibility in the C++ Library

The C++ library now preserves OpenAI-compatible `/v1` base URLs (PR
#773) instead of rewriting them to `/api/v1`. That means inference
servers that expose the standard OpenAI `/v1` path — for example, Ollama
at `http://localhost:11434/v1` — work out of the box without needing a
special adapter.

---

### Reference Agents and Real-Hardware Integration Tests

Three new example agents and a Strix-runner CI workflow land together
(PR #340).

**What you can do:**
- Copy `examples/weather_agent.py`, `examples/rag_doc_agent.py`, or
`examples/product_mockup_agent.py` as a starting point for your own
agents
- Run the new integration tests locally against Lemonade to validate
agents end-to-end, not just structurally

**Under the hood:**
- `tests/integration/test_example_agents.py` executes agents and
validates responses with a 5-minute-per-test timeout
- `.github/workflows/test_examples.yml` runs on the self-hosted Strix
runner (`stx` label) with Lemonade serving `Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507-GGUF`
- Docs homepage refreshed with a technical value prop ("Agent SDK for
AMD Ryzen AI") and MCP / CUA added to the capabilities list

---

### Smarter PDF Handling in RAG

Encrypted and corrupted PDFs now surface as distinct, actionable errors
(`EncryptedPDFError`, `CorruptedPDFError`, `EmptyPDFError`) instead of
generic failures or silent 0-chunk indexes (PR #784, closes #451).
Encrypted PDFs are detected before extraction; corrupted PDFs are caught
during extraction with a clear message. Combined with the
indexing-failure surfacing in PR #723, you get a visible indexing-failed
status the moment a document fails — and the RAG index itself is now
thread-safe under concurrent queries (PR #746).

---

## Security

### RAG Cache Deserialization Replaced with JSON + HMAC

Fixes an insecure-deserialization issue in the RAG cache (CWE-502, PR
#768). Previously, cached document indexes were serialized with Python
`pickle`; if an attacker could write to `~/.gaia/` — via a shared drive,
a sync conflict, or a malicious extension — loading that cache could
execute arbitrary code.

v0.17.3 replaces `pickle` with signed JSON: caches are now serialized as
JSON and authenticated with HMAC-SHA256 using a per-install key stored
at `~/.gaia/cache/hmac.key`. Unsigned or tampered caches are rejected
and transparently rebuilt on the next query. Old `.pkl` caches from
previous GAIA versions are ignored and re-indexed the next time you
query a document.

**You should upgrade if you** share `~/.gaia/` across machines (Dropbox,
iCloud, network home directories), run GAIA in a multi-user environment,
or have ever imported RAG caches from another source.

---

## Bug Fixes

- **Ask Agent attaches files before sending to chat** (PR #725) —
Dropped files are indexed into RAG and attached to the active session
before the prompt is consumed, so the model sees the document on the
first turn instead of the second.
- **Document indexing failures are surfaced** (PR #723) — A document
that produces 0 chunks now raises `RuntimeError` in the SDK and surfaces
as `indexing_status: failed` in the UI, instead of looking like a silent
success. Covers RAG SDK, background indexing, and re-index paths.
- **Encrypted or corrupted PDFs produce actionable errors** (PR #784,
closes #451) — RAG now raises distinct `EncryptedPDFError` and
`CorruptedPDFError` exceptions instead of generic failures, so you see
exactly what went wrong.
- **RAG index thread safety hardened** (PR #746) — Adds `RLock`
protection around index mutation paths and rebuilds chunk/index state
atomically before publishing it, so concurrent queries read consistent
snapshots and failed rebuilds no longer leak partial state.
- **MCP JSON-RPC handler guards against non-dict bodies** (PR #803) — A
malformed JSON-RPC payload (array, string, null) now returns HTTP 400
`Invalid Request: expected JSON object` instead of an HTTP 500 from a
`TypeError`.
- **File-search count aligned with accessible results** (PR #754) — The
returned count now matches the number of files the tool actually
surfaces, instead of a pre-filter total that over-reported results the
caller could not access.
- **Tracked block cursor replaces misplaced decorative cursor** (PR
#727) — Fixes the mis-positioned blinking cursor in the chat input box,
which now tracks the actual caret position via a mirror-div technique.
- **Ad-hoc sign the macOS app bundle instead of skipping code signing**
(PR #765) — The `.app` bundle inside the DMG now carries an ad-hoc
signature, so Gatekeeper presents a single "Open Anyway" bypass in
System Settings instead of the unrecoverable "is damaged" error. Full
Apple Developer ID signing is still being finalized.

---

## Release & CI

- **Publish workflow: single approval gate, no legacy Electron apps**
(PR #758) — Removed the legacy jira and example standalone Electron apps
from the publish pipeline; a single `publish` environment gate governs
PyPI, npm, and installer publishing.
- **Claude CI modernization** (PR #797, PR #799, PR #783) — Migrated all
four `claude-code-action` call sites to `v1.0.99` (pinned by SHA, fixes
an issue-handler hang), bumped `--max-turns` from 20 to 50 on both
`pr-review` and `pr-comment` for deeper analysis, upgraded to Opus 4.7,
standardized 23 subagent definitions with explicit when-to-use sections
and tool allowlists, and added agent-builder tooling (manifest schema,
`lint.py --agents`, BuilderAgent mixins).

---

## Docs

- **Roadmap overhaul** (PR #710) — Milestone-aligned plans with
voice-first as P0 and 9 new plan documents for upcoming initiatives.
- **Plan: email triage agent** (PR #796) — Specification for an upcoming
email triage agent.
- **Docs/source drift resolved** (PR #794) — Fixed broken SDK examples
across 15 docs, rewrote 5 spec files against the current source
(including two that documented entire APIs that don't exist in code),
added 20+ missing CLI flags to the CLI reference, and removed 2
already-shipped plan documents (installer, mcp-client).
- **FAQ: data-privacy answer clarified for external LLM providers** (PR
#798) — Sharper guidance on what leaves your machine when you point GAIA
at Claude or OpenAI.

---

## Full Changelog

**21 commits** since v0.17.2:

- `6d3f3f71` — fix: replace misplaced decorative cursor with tracked
terminal block cursor (#727)
- `874cf2a3` — fix: Ask Agent indexes and attaches files before sending
to chat (#725)
- `4fa121e2` — fix: surface document indexing failures instead of silent
0-chunk success (#723)
- `34b1d06e` — fix(ci): ad-hoc sign macOS DMG instead of skipping code
signing (#765)
- `7188b83c` — Roadmap overhaul: milestone-aligned plans with
voice-first P0 and 9 new plan documents (#710)
- `1beddac5` — cpp: support Ollama-compatible /v1 endpoints (#773)
- `cf9ac995` — fix: harden rag index thread safety (#746)
- `1c55c31b` — fix(ci): remove legacy electron apps from publish, single
approval gate (#758)
- `52946a7a` — feat(installer): bundle Lemonade Server MSI into Windows
installer (#774) (#781)
- `e96b3686` — ci(claude): review infra + conventions + subagent
overhaul + agent-builder tooling (#783)
- `058674b5` — fix(rag): detect encrypted and corrupted PDFs with
actionable errors (#451) (#784)
- `7bcb5d51` — fix: replace insecure pickle deserialization with JSON +
HMAC in RAG cache (CWE-502) (#768)
- `a5167e5f` — fix: keep file-search count aligned with accessible
results (#754)
- `da5ba458` — ci(claude): migrate to claude-code-action v1.0.99 + fix
issue-handler hang (#797)
- `03f546b9` — ci(claude): bump pr-review and pr-comment --max-turns 20
-> 50 (#799)
- `4119d564` — docs(faq): clarify data-privacy answer re: external LLM
providers (#798)
- `0cfbcf41` — Add example agents and integration test workflow (#340)
- `c4bd15fb` — docs: fix drift between docs and source (docs review pass
1 + 2) (#794)
- `407ed5b8` — docs(plans): add email triage agent spec (#796)
- `06fb04a4` — fix(mcp): guard JSON-RPC handler against non-dict body
(#803)
- `880ad603` — feat(installer): custom installer guide, agent
export/import, first-launch seeder (#795)

Full Changelog:
[v0.17.2...v0.17.3](v0.17.2...v0.17.3)

---

## Release checklist
- [x] `util/validate_release_notes.py docs/releases/v0.17.3.mdx --tag
v0.17.3` passes
- [x] `src/gaia/version.py` → `0.17.3`
- [x] `src/gaia/apps/webui/package.json` → `0.17.3`
- [x] Navbar label in `docs/docs.json` → `v0.17.3 · Lemonade 10.0.0`
- [x] All 21 PRs in the range (v0.17.2..HEAD) are represented in the
notes
- [ ] Review from @kovtcharov-amd addressed
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