Authorize & the ledger
What happens when you authorize a client, and where every read it made shows up.
Connecting a client
Click Add to <client> on Set up your client, and the client shows up in Settings › AI Agents as Waiting for you — it's installed itself and is waiting for permission. Before you approve it, Selv shows what you're agreeing to: the client can only read, never change or delete anything; it only ever sees the few lines that answer what it asked, never your whole memory; and you can take access back with one click, at which point the very next request it makes fails.
Authorizing
Click Authorize, and the client can read on its next request. With Require Touch ID on, one approval covers that client for about an hour, after which it needs another. Turn it off and an unlocked Mac is enough — no per-hour prompt — but a locked Mac still closes the door either way.
The ledger
Settings › AI Agents also keeps "What did agents read?" — one row per call: which client, which tool, what it asked, how much came back, and how long it took. It's a record of reads through the door Selv opens, not a log of every connection the app makes. For internet, licence, model and mail traffic, use Settings › Diagnostics › Network activity — see What leaves this Mac.
Revoking access
Revoke a client's grant and its very next request is refused — no waiting for a session to expire. Revoking doesn't touch anything the client already read; it stops what happens from there on.
Updated 2026-09-21