Privacy and Security

This plugin is designed to be local‑first, but it can talk to external services depending on your settings.

Local‑first data flow

• PDFs are processed on your machine.
• Chunks and embeddings are stored locally (Redis + cache files in your vault).
• Notes remain normal Obsidian Markdown files.

API key storage

• Provider API keys are stored in the plugin settings.
• Keys are masked in the UI but not encrypted on disk.

When network calls occur

Network calls happen only when you enable features that require them:

• Zotero Web API: Optional fallback or write‑back.
• Cloud LLM providers: If you choose OpenAI/OpenRouter or another remote provider.
• PaddleOCR API: If you enable PaddleOCR API modes.

If you run everything locally (Zotero local API, local LLM server, local OCR), the plugin stays fully offline.