Privacy & your data
Harness is built local-first. The parts that touch your screen, your memory, and your conversations run on your own device by default, and the design goal is simple: they’re yours.
Screen understanding stays on your device
The models that understand your screen run in your browser, on your machine. Reading your screen, recognizing text, and finding things in your screen history all happen locally. Harness does not upload the raw screen stream or your full screen history.
When you ask a question that needs a language model, Harness sends the model only the context needed to answer. That can include a selected current frame or crop, a recalled historical frame, a memory snippet, or conversation context. In the anonymous and private settings, Harness also sends its server a compact text log of recent screen changes and shared-tab audio so the model can keep continuity between screenshots. This working log is held in memory and expires within the hour; it is not your full screen stream or durable history. Private e2e keeps that log on your device.
Two more things leave your device in some settings:
- History questions in the anonymous setting. After your device ranks the best matches in your screen history, the text read from up to 24 of them goes to Harness’s server for a final relevance check. The private and private e2e settings keep that check on your device.
- Watches. While a watch runs, batches of its frames go to a vision model chosen within your privacy setting. A watcher for a single value runs on your device.
Your memory is on-device
What Harness remembers about you lives in a private database inside your browser. It is used to personalize your answers. A relevant memory snippet may be included in a turn sent to the inference endpoint you chose. Encrypted backup stores a sealed copy that Harness cannot read.
Keeping memory tidy also sends memory text through Harness, in every privacy setting. When a memory is saved, it and up to 8 similar older ones go to Harness’s server to check for duplicates and contradictions. Building your profile sends the memories it selects to your chosen model, through Harness. Neither is stored on the server; see Memory.
You can view, edit, and delete anything Harness has remembered, and you can export it at any time. Data portability is a right, not a paid feature.
Your conversations stay with you
The full history of every conversation is saved on your device. We keep a title and a short summary of each one on our servers, plus a recent copy of its messages, so things work smoothly across your devices and search can find an old chat. After about a month we keep only the summary, and your device is what holds the real record. You can delete any conversation, or everything, at any time.
Your agents, phone and browsers
Harness Relay keeps your task board and your agents’ sessions on your computer. Your phone and the browsers you use Harness in reach it sealed end to end: Harness carries those messages and cannot read them. It does see which account and device a message belongs to, its size and its timing.
Some things Harness does read, and it labels them wherever you hand them over:
- Tasks for agents that run on Harness’s server, like Bankr and Quotient, and work for agents in their own clouds, like Grok Bot.
- Your threads, when Harness coordinates them. Choose Keep it on this computer and an agent on your computer coordinates instead, with nothing sent to Harness. See Threads & goals.
Files agents pass to each other stay on your computer unless an agent shares one with a cloud agent on purpose.
The extension
The extension reads a page only when you select a section, send a message while a page is connected, or ask for a browser task, and only on sites you allowed in Chrome. What it reads goes through Harness to the model you chose. Passwords, hidden fields and payment codes are left out. It keeps no record of your browsing.
Encrypted backup (Resident)
Because on-device storage lives in your browser, it can be lost if the browser clears the origin under storage pressure. Resident adds encrypted cloud backup so your memory and your conversations survive that, with a key only you hold, and lets you carry your full history to another device. It is the durability layer on top of local-first, not a different place your data lives: we store the sealed copy and cannot read it.
Browser storage persistence
Browsers keep on-device data across reloads by default. Separately, they can grant “persistent” storage that is exempt from automatic eviction under disk pressure. Harness requests this grant, but browsers only give it once you have engaged with the site or installed it, so it may show as not granted at first. Your memory still persists across reloads either way. For guaranteed durability, Resident’s encrypted backup is the real answer.
Control
- Stop screen sharing at any time; when you are not sharing, Harness cannot see your screen. Sharing also stops on its own after 10 minutes without activity in the Harness window, unless a watch is running.
- Choose your privacy setting in Settings → Inference → Models & routing.
- Revoke a phone, a browser or an app that calls Harness in Settings → Tools & connections → Agents.
- View, edit, delete, and export your memory from settings.
- Choose a browser-relayed local model to keep model execution on your hardware. The hosted product still orchestrates the turn; self-hosting is the end-to-end no-Harness-server path.