Privacy
Your files stay on your computer
The agent runs the Filestar CLI on the same computer as the files. A local skill reads and writes the files there, and nothing about their contents is sent anywhere. Most skills, including the common conversions, resizing and compression, are local.
When files go to the cloud
A cloud skill runs on Filestar's servers: the file is uploaded, processed, and the result is downloaded. The CLI only runs a cloud skill when it is allowed to:
--cloud Disallowed(the default) never uses a cloud skill. Agents should pass it when files must stay on the computer.--cloud Alloweduses a cloud skill when there is no local one.--cloud Forcedalways uses the cloud. Agents should only pass it when you ask for it.
--dry-run shows whether a command would run locally or in the cloud before anything happens. Cloud skills need a plan. Privacy and Security describes how Filestar handles uploaded files.
What Filestar receives
To check your plan and count runs, the CLI tells Filestar's licence service about each run: which skill, the file types, how many files and how large, this computer's registration, and whether it worked. Never the contents of a file for a local skill.
With each run it also sends three facts about how it was started:
| Field | Example | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Surface | cli, mcp or gui |
Knowing whether the app, the CLI or the MCP server is used. |
| Channel | npm, dotnet-tool or installer |
Knowing how the CLI was installed, and whether the free runs apply. |
| Agent | claude-code/2.1 |
Counting which agents use Filestar, and finding problems that affect one agent. |
The agent name comes from --user-agent, FILESTAR_USER_AGENT, the MCP handshake, or a guess from the environment. It names the program, not you.
The agent and its provider
What you ask your agent, and what it shows you, goes through the agent's own provider (such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, GitHub or Cursor) under their terms, not Filestar's. Filestar sees only what the CLI sends, as above. That is also why we suggest filestarcli login instead of pasting a licence key into a chat.
Removing Filestar from an agent
filestarcli agent uninstall removes the skill or MCP entry it added. Each file it edited was copied to a .bak file first.