Show HN: Breadcrumb, record everything on your mac + context manager for AI

What it claims

Breadcrumb is a free macOS app with no account, email, credit card, subscription or telemetry. It records screen, meeting and app activity locally, and Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and OpenCode can query that history. The page makes one durable commitment: "the free Breadcrumb will never be removed, disabled, or restricted," whether or not the company is funded or survives. The wording "the free Breadcrumb" leaves room for a paid tier, but the page does not describe one.

How it works

• Speaker naming uses names shown on screen (for example, Zoom tiles). No voiceprints or voice profiles are built.
• Local models handle transcription, speaker naming and the organisation of the day into blocks.
• Encryption. History is encrypted at rest. The key is kept in macOS Keychain, and recovery uses a 12-word BIP39 phrase that only you hold.
• Rules are scoped to a path, for example scope: /myapp. Correcting an AI prompts an offer to save the correction as a rule, which every connected AI then follows.
• Shortcuts use a backslash prefix, for example \fb-hours, and the page says they work across all connected AIs.
• Session resume lists past agent sessions with their duration and turn count, and lets a new chat continue one.

The page does not say how the AI clients connect to Breadcrumb: no protocol, plugin or API is named.

The trust boundary is the part an adopter most needs to understand:

flowchart LR
  R[Screen/meeting capture] --> S[(Encrypted store on Mac)]
  Q[AI asks a question] --> S
  S --> A{Which AI?}
  A -->|Local model| L[Nothing leaves Mac]
  A -->|Claude / ChatGPT| C[Answer sent to vendor, their privacy policy applies]

Breadcrumb itself sends only one daily update check, which carries no identifying details. The page suggests verifying this with Little Snitch. Any answer Breadcrumb gives to a cloud AI does leave the machine, the same as anything you type into that AI.

How to use it

Requirements:

• Apple silicon M1 or later
• At least 16 GB RAM
• macOS 15 or later

The page links an install but gives no command, version number or download size.

Recording controls:

• Exclude specific apps, sites, and words or phrases appearing on screen.
• Incognito sites are never recorded.
• The menu bar has an instant pause, and while paused nothing at all is recorded.

Limits

• No evidence. There are no benchmarks or accuracy figures for transcription, speaker attribution or time-tracking. Every result shown is a mock-up conversation.
• No licence or source. The page does not state a licence or whether the source is available. "Runs on local models" names no models.
• Cloud exposure. With a cloud AI, recorded meeting and screen content reaches that vendor whenever it queries Breadcrumb. Check this against your employer's data policy before using it on work meetings.
• Speaker naming depends on what is on screen. Since it reads names from the screen, attribution may fail for audio-only participants or calls without visible names. The page does not address this case.