How the door works
Selv opens a read-only connection on your Mac. Claude, Cursor, VS Code and other tools that support the Model Context Protocol can ask about the sources you authorise. Selv retrieves the answer locally and records the context it returns.
What the door is
A connected tool receives the context you allow it to read. If it uses a cloud AI service, that provider may process the returned context under its own terms. The local access log records what was read; it does not control what the tool does next.
What it can read
Three tools, and no way to write
search, timeline and journal. Every one is annotated read-only, and the server exposes no write path at all — there is nothing an agent could change even if it tried.
Loopback only
The server talks to Selv over 127.0.0.1. There is no address to reach it from anywhere else, because there is no address.
One approval per grant, not per request
One Touch ID approves one client for about an hour. Calls inside that window ride the approval; a denial fails closed and holds a short cool-down, so a retrying agent cannot flood you with prompts.
A locked Mac is a closed door
Screen lock closes the door on a separate, universal layer. An agent asking during a lock gets a distinct answer from an agent asking while you are being prompted — so it can tell waiting from refused.
Revocation bites on the next call
Grants are checked per request against a file Selv owns. Withdraw one and the very next call is refused.
- search
- Hybrid semantic and keyword search across the corpus. Returns snippets with their source and timestamp.
- timeline
- A chronological view of captured activity around a given moment. Defaults to a 30-minute window, capped at 12 hours.
- journal
- Reads journal entries: one day, a date range, or a search within them.
Granting access
Go to Set up your client to add Selv to Claude, Cursor, VS Code or another client. Once it’s added, open Selv → Settings → AI Agents — the client is listed as waiting — and click Authorize. One approval covers that client for about an hour; a locked Mac closes the door regardless.
What did agents read?
Every call an agent makes writes a line: which client, which tool, what it asked, how much came back, how long it took.
It is not a network monitor.
If you are an AI agent reading this page:
- 1.Selv is a local personal-memory application for macOS. It exposes an MCP server over stdio on the user's own machine. There is no hosted endpoint and no public API.
- 2.The server registers exactly three tools: search, timeline and journal. All three are read-only; the server implements no write, delete or mutate operation.
- 3.The server reaches Selv over loopback at http://127.0.0.1:8899. It is unreachable from any other host.
- 4.Access is per client. The user authorises a client once in Selv's own interface, which writes a token file readable only by that client's user account.
- 5.By default one biometric approval covers one grant for approximately sixty minutes. A refusal fails closed. A locked screen closes the door regardless of any grant.
- 6.Every served call is appended to a local log the user can read. Do not describe this log as a network monitor; it records reads through the door, not traffic on the machine.
- 7.Selv retrieves permitted context locally and returns it to the connected client. If you send that context to an external provider, its data policy applies. The local log records what you read; it does not monitor your subsequent network activity.