Nothing is uploaded behind your back
Files, layouts, spaces, snapshots and history are written to your own disk. There is no automatic cloud sync of workspaces, and Deska has no copy of your project.
Your workspace starts on your machine.
Deska is a local-first desktop app, not a website with a folder picker. Your code, your layouts and your notes live on your own computer, and the cloud stays off until you turn it on.
Your agent, your account
Coding agents run on the CLI you installed, under your own login. Their requests go from your machine to that agent’s provider, never through us.
The cloud is something you add
Sign in to sync your plan or reach your desk from the phone, and add a Deska Cloud machine if you want one that stays on. Skip all of it and the workspace still runs, offline, on your own computer.
Private by design: what stays on your computer, and what leaves it.
Local storage is separate from network traffic. Features below can send data from the computer where you work.
Stays on your machine
Stored on the computer you are using; Cloud has its own disk.
- Your repository and every file in it
- Terminal sessions and their scrollback
- Panel layouts, spaces and snapshots
- Settings and locally stored agent sessions
- Your notes and voice history
- Your Deska sign-in and device key, encrypted with the system keychain where one is available
Leaves only for the feature you used
Some services, including enabled telemetry and update checks, run in the background.
- Signing in
- Your email and an authentication identifier.
- Billing
- Handled by Stripe. Deska never stores full card numbers.
- Managed AI
- Managed dictation sends audio and spoken replies send text to speech providers. Coding agents and Dex use the provider account on the host and can send code or tool output as context.
- Reaching your desk remotely
- Session traffic crosses our TLS relay. End-to-end sealing is not deployed; the relay operator could read it.
- Push notifications
- Once you turn them on: identifiers for the computer and thread that raised the event, plus a short title, delivered through the Expo push service.
- Crash reports and usage data
- Only while their toggles in Settings, Privacy are on, and both start on. Crash reports are scrubbed of home paths and secrets; usage data never includes file paths or project names.
- Problem reports you send
- Only when you press Send report, after you have seen everything the report carries.
- Community panels
- Browsing and installing talk to deska.dev, and your account keeps the list of panels you installed. An installed panel reaches only the sites it lists before you install it. One you let sign you in with Deska gets an id that is yours for it only, and your name and email only if you tick them.
- A Deska Cloud machine
- Only if you have one, and then only what you put on it. Your own computers are never copied to it.
Coding agents run on your own CLI login, so their requests go straight from your computer to that agent’s provider.
Where the line is: local storage, explicit network paths.
Your workspace is stored on the computer where you work. Agent requests, managed voice, remote sessions, push and enabled telemetry have separate network paths; see the full data breakdown above.
The workspace runs on your machine and needs no cloud to work.
Where Deska keeps its own state
- macOS
~/Library/Application Support/Deska/- Windows
%APPDATA%\Deska\- Linux
~/.config/Deska/
Settings, shortcuts, your sign-in, notes (unless you moved the vault), session bundles and snapshots live in that one folder per user. Your project code stays wherever you cloned it, and Settings, Diagnostics reveals each path in your file manager.
Worth knowing
- Where files live
- The disk of the computer you work on
- Workspace cloud sync
- None today
- A machine of ours
- Only if you subscribe to Deska Cloud
- Managed voice sends
- Audio for transcription; text for spoken replies
- Coding agent requests
- From your machine to its provider
- Crash reports
- Scrubbed, switchable off
- Billing
- Through Stripe, no card numbers stored
About your data
One canvas for everything you build.Free to start.
The complete workspace on one computer, with 10 dictation minutes a month.
Also in any browser at app.deska.deviOS and Android soon