Private mode

Sometimes you want to talk to your agent without any of it being remembered. Private mode does exactly that: while it is on, the agent makes no writes to The Librarian on its own — nothing is remembered, nothing is flagged. The one exception is an explicit handoff: if you ask to hand off while private, the agent confirms with you first and stores it only on your say-so (see below). Privacy is the point of The Librarian, so this control is deliberately simple and always available.

Turning it on and off

Just say so. “Go private”, “off the record”, or “don’t remember this” turns it on; “back on the record” turns it off. Where the /toggle-private command exists you can use that too. Under the hood the agent marks the conversation with [librarian:private=on] and, later, [librarian:private=off].

The default, when nothing has been said, is off — normal operation.

What is paused, and what isn’t

• Paused on the agent’s own initiative: remembering facts, storing handoffs, and flagging memories — the agent will not do any of these unprompted while private.
• Still allowed: recalling memories and searching references. You can still ask “what do we know about X?” while private.
• Asks first, then proceeds: an explicit /handoff (or /learn) is your override. Ask to hand off while private and the agent does not silently skip it — it confirms you really want this conversation written, then stores it only on a yes. Private mode blocks automatic writes, not a deliberate, confirmed one.

There is one honest caveat worth knowing: those read queries (recall and reference search) still reach the server, so the search text appears in the server’s logs even in private mode. Private mode stops new memories being written; it does not make a read invisible to the server you own. If you ask, the agent will tell you this.

Two things to watch

• Long conversations that get compacted. If your tool compresses a long conversation and drops the private marker, the agent falls back to off. If you need a hard guarantee, avoid compaction during a private stretch.
• Mentioning the marker counts as toggling it. Automatic capture (and the server) match the literal text [librarian:private=on] / [librarian:private=off] anywhere in a turn — they do not try to tell a real command apart from prose that merely quotes it. So even talking about [librarian:private=on] mid-sentence pauses capture from that point, until a later turn contains the off-marker. This is deliberate: erring toward not capturing is the safe direction. If capture seems to have stopped, check whether a recent turn mentioned the on-marker, and send the off-marker to resume.

Private mode and automatic capture

Automatic capture respects private mode the same way — a private turn is never shipped, and a private-then-public sequence never retroactively sends the private turns. In fact capture errs more cautiously than the agent: when it cannot be sure whether a turn was private, it treats it as private and skips it.