Skylab privacy policy

Effective date: 2026-10-21 (version 1.0.0)

Skylab is a reader app for the open social web: Bluesky and other AT Protocol apps, Mastodon-family servers, Lemmy, and RSS/Atom feeds. It reads public content from those networks and shows it on your phone. Skylab hosts no content, has no user accounts of its own, and sells nothing about you.

This page explains what stays on your device, what leaves it, and who receives it.

The short version

Your channels, sign-ins, and AI settings are stored only on your phone.
The app talks directly to the networks you read (Bluesky, Mastodon servers, Lemmy servers, RSS sites). Those sites see your requests the same way a web browser would.
An optional Skylab server provides the Discover catalog, community suggestions, signed-out search, and a hosted AI beta. It keeps no post content and no raw IP addresses.
AI thread summaries ("TL;DR") are off by default. Nothing is sent to any AI provider until you choose one in Settings → AI and tap TL;DR on a thread.
No analytics, no advertising SDKs, no crash-reporting service in version 1.0.

What stays on your device

Data	Where it lives	Why
Your channels (names, sources, view mode, filters)	App storage (AsyncStorage)	So your channel list survives restarts
Bluesky session (handle, access/refresh tokens)	Android encrypted storage (SecureStore)	So you stay signed in to Bluesky
Mastodon / Pixelfed / GoToSocial access tokens and the per-server app credentials Skylab registers	SecureStore	So you stay signed in to those servers
AI provider settings (base URL, model, API key)	SecureStore	So TL;DR can call the provider you chose
Up to 200 recently opened posts (public post content you tapped)	App storage (AsyncStorage)	So a thread reopens instantly, including after Android restarts the app; oldest are dropped first, all removed on uninstall

Uninstalling Skylab deletes all of it. You can also remove sign-ins under Settings → Accounts and AI settings under Settings → AI at any time.

Skylab does not read your contacts, location, photos, microphone, or camera, and asks for no such permissions.

What leaves your device, and to whom

1. The networks you read (direct, no middleman)

When you open a channel, Skylab fetches its sources straight from the hosts you added:

Bluesky / AT Protocol: bsky.social, the public AppView, feed generators, and any PDS the content lives on.
Mastodon-API servers (Mastodon, Pixelfed, GoToSocial, Akkoma, …): whichever server the source names, e.g. mastodon.social.
Lemmy: whichever instance the community lives on, e.g. lemmy.world.
RSS / Atom: the website publishing the feed.

Each of those hosts sees your IP address and a user agent string identifying Skylab, like any browser or feed reader. If you sign in to Bluesky or a Mastodon-API server, actions you take there (follow, unfollow) are performed with your account on that network and are governed by that network's own privacy policy. Skylab never sees your Bluesky main password: sign-in uses an app password, and the resulting session token is stored only on your phone.

2. The Skylab server (optional)

Some features call a small server run by Skylab (the address is built into the app). It is used for:

Discover catalog and Topics – read-only lists of sources.
Community suggestions and votes – when you suggest a source or vote, the server stores the source you typed (for example [email protected] or a feed URL), its type, and a vote count.
AT Protocol app discovery – trending record types, proxied from the public UFOs index. The server remembers only *which* record types it has seen and when, never the records.
Signed-out search (cashtags, hashtags, keywords) – the server searches Bluesky with its own service account and returns post IDs only.
Skylab AI (hosted beta) – see the AI section below.

To prevent abuse, the server rate-limits suggestions, votes, and AI requests per requester. The requester id is a one-way hash (SHA-256) of your IP address. Raw IP addresses are never stored. Vote de-duplication uses the same hash. For Skylab AI requests only, the app also sends a random install id (32 hex characters generated on first use, stored on your device, not derived from your phone or any account) so the AI limit is per install rather than shared by everyone behind one network address. It is used only as a rate-limit key, is not stored with any content, and changes if you reinstall.

The server stores no posts, no channel lists, no account tokens, and nothing that identifies you by name or handle.

3. AI providers (only if you turn TL;DR on)

Thread summaries are off on a fresh install. In Settings → AI you choose one of:

Bring your own key (OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Groq, or any OpenAI-compatible API). Your key is stored in SecureStore on the phone, and requests go directly from your phone to that provider. Skylab never sees the key or the request. That provider's privacy policy applies.
Local model (Ollama, LM Studio, or a KwaaiNet node on your network). Requests go from your phone to that machine. Nothing leaves your network.
Skylab AI (hosted beta) – the Skylab server forwards the text to the AI backend it is configured with (a KwaaiNet node, with an optional fallback). The server does not store the text or the summary. The hosted beta is rate-limited per install (see the random install id above) with a wider cap per network address, and is clearly labeled as a beta.

In every case, what is sent is only the public text of the thread you tapped TL;DR on – the post, up to 60 replies, with authors' public handles – trimmed to a fixed size. No private messages, no tokens, no channel list, nothing from your device beyond that thread.

What Skylab does not do

No analytics or usage tracking.
No advertising SDKs. (A clearly labeled ads slot and voluntary tips are being considered for a future version; if added, this policy will be updated first.)
No crash-reporting service. Crashes stay in your phone's own logs.
No selling, renting, or sharing of personal data with anyone.
No background data collection: the app only fetches when you open it.

Sensitive content

Posts that the originating network marks as adult, graphic, or NSFW (Bluesky moderation labels, Mastodon sensitive, Lemmy nsfw) are hidden by default. You can show them per channel. Skylab applies the networks' own labels and does not add its own moderation.

Children

Skylab is not directed at children under 13 (or the age of digital consent where you live). It displays content from third-party networks that may be unsuitable for children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children; since Skylab stores nothing about you on its servers, there is nothing to delete, but if you believe a child has used the hosted AI beta, contact us and we will help.

Your choices

Sign out of any network under Settings → Accounts; the token is deleted from the phone.
Remove AI settings under Settings → AI; the key is deleted from the phone.
Delete a channel by swiping it away on the Channels screen.
Uninstall to remove everything.
Data held by the networks you read is controlled by those networks; use their tools and policies.

Open source

Skylab's source code is public, so you can check every statement on this page against the code: <https://github.com/analogglitch/unified_feed>.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes we will update the effective date at the top and, for material changes, note it in the app's release notes before the change takes effect. Previous versions stay available in the repository history.

Contact

Questions or requests: open an issue at <https://github.com/analogglitch/unified_feed/issues> or email [SET A SUPPORT ADDRESS BEFORE PUBLISHING] (Play Console requires a developer email; use the same one here).