Local-First Meeting Architecture Research Note

Local-First Meeting Architecture Research Note

Local-first describes which copy is primary and whether core work can continue without a vendor server. It does not by itself establish encryption, endpoint security, consent, backup, collaboration safety, model isolation, or compliance.

The foundational local-first software essay defines a family of ideals including offline work, multi-device access, collaboration, longevity, privacy, and user control. It also treats those ideals as difficult to achieve together.

Quill's current documentation says audio and transcripts stay on the computer by default and allows local models, user API keys, private endpoints, or Quill cloud processing. Its privacy policy says encrypted copies may be stored when sharing or syncing is enabled. Those are first-party descriptions, not independent certifications.

CISA's device-encryption guidance stresses backups and safe recovery-key storage. NIST SP 800-209 treats restoration assurance, encryption, authentication, isolation, incident response, and recovery as separate storage controls.

A product review should trace audio, transcript, notes, embeddings, model requests, sync copies, backups, exports, logs, keys, and deletions.