Files and paths

Yachiyo’s persistent data files live in one directory. It defaults to /Users/<you>/.yachiyo on macOS and C:\Users\<you>\.yachiyo on Windows. The operating system’s credential encryption protects the key for the local model provider vault; there is no Yachiyo server holding a copy.

`~/.yachiyo`

Path	What it is
`config.toml`	Settings and provider metadata; model-provider secrets are excluded. May include an Exa key. Reference
`provider-credentials.enc`	Encrypted model-provider API keys and Vertex private keys
`provider-credentials.key`	Vault key wrapped by the operating system’s credential encryption
`channels.toml`	Channel credentials and tuning. Reference
`yachiyo.sqlite`	Threads, messages, tool calls, memory, schedules, run history
`SOUL.md`	Assistant persona and evolving trait log
`USER.md`	Your profile, as structured tables
`skills/core/`	Bundled skills. Re-extracted on every launch — edits are lost.
`skills/custom/`	Your own skills
`bin/yachiyo` / `bin/yachiyo.cmd`	Platform CLI wrapper. Regenerated on every launch; do not edit.
`yachiyo.sock`	macOS Unix socket used by live-app CLI commands; Windows uses a named pipe instead
`temp-workspace/<thread-id>/`	Auto-created workspaces for threads with no assigned directory
`file-history/`	Run file snapshots (content-addressed)
`workspace-indexes/`	Search indexes for registered workspaces
`web-search/browser-session/`	The hidden browser session used by search
`browser-automation/`	`useBrowser` sessions and profile
`jotdowns/`	Quick notes captured with the jot-down shortcut
`activity-source.key`	Key for the activity source

`YACHIYO_HOME`

Set YACHIYO_HOME to move the entire directory:

YACHIYO_HOME=/tmp/yachiyo-test yachiyo thread list

$env:YACHIYO_HOME = 'D:\Yachiyo Test'
yachiyo thread list

Everything above relocates together — config, database, skills, and the command endpoint identity. Windows derives a stable \\.\pipe\yachiyo-<id> name from the normalized home path rather than creating a socket file. This is the clean way to run an isolated instance for testing without touching your real history.

The CLI can also point at individual files, which is handy for reading a copy of a database without moving anything else:

yachiyo thread list --db /path/to/yachiyo.sqlite
yachiyo config get --settings /path/to/config.toml
yachiyo soul traits list --soul /path/to/SOUL.md

What to back up

Priority	Path	Why
High	`yachiyo.sqlite`	Your entire conversation history
High	`SOUL.md`, `USER.md`	Persona and profile — small, and slow to rebuild
High	`skills/custom/`	Skills you wrote
Medium	`config.toml`	Settings; may contain an Exa web-search key. Keep it private.
Medium	`provider-credentials.enc`, `provider-credentials.key`	Device-local provider secrets. Configure them again on a new device.
Medium	`channels.toml`	Bot credentials. Keep it private.
Skip	`temp-workspace/`, `file-history/`, `workspace-indexes/`, `web-search/`, `browser-automation/`	Regenerated, and large

What leaves your machine

Only the requests you cause: calls to the providers you configured, pages the agent fetches, searches you run, and channel messages. There is no telemetry and no hosted backend.

Sync is the one exception, and it is opt-in and points at a folder you choose. It copies settings data in config.toml, skills/custom/ (including script contents), and chat archives; the provider vault and its key stay on this device. Because settings or custom scripts may still contain other secrets such as an Exa key, keep the sync folder private.