Security
Three ways to run it. Pick one.
ServiceTitan’s 2026 residential survey found nearly half of contractors still do not trust AI. The setup assumes you are in that half until you are not.
A. Local
You want the data on a machine you can see.
- The gateway runs on your Mac or PC and binds to localhost.
- If you need to reach it from elsewhere, we use an SSH tunnel or Tailscale. We do not open a port on the router.
- Cheapest. Most private. The computer has to stay on. If it sleeps, the agent sleeps.
B. Hardened VPS
You want it on, and you do not want it on the public internet.
- About $4 to $6 a month on Hetzner or DigitalOcean. The account is yours.
- The gateway is published only to 127.0.0.1 on that server. A firewall allows SSH, and SSH is key-only.
- Keys sit in a locked env file owned by a user that cannot administer the box.
- I do not install random skills from a public registry. The ClawHavoc campaign found over 800 malicious skills, about 20 percent of that registry.
C. Zero trust
Same server as B, with a front door that is not a port.
- You reach it through Tailscale Serve or Cloudflare Access.
- The gateway port stays closed to the internet.
- When someone leaves, you remove them there and I revoke the vendor credentials the same day.
On every option
- Least privilege. View access first. Write access only for the one action the agent is allowed to take.
- No training on your customer data.
- An audit log of every action the agent takes.
- You can revoke the vendor credentials the same day, without me.
- A person approves any message to a customer and any write that spends money, until you turn that gate off for that agent.