Footprint¶

Footprint records a local census of allowlisted SASE features so you can see which surfaces you use.

What Footprint records¶

The CLI recorder appends one line per process to $SASE_HOME/footprint/spool/YYYY-MM-DD.jsonl (default root: ~/.sase). A record contains:

A catalogued command ID, or cli:~other for an unknown command.
Up to 16 option destination names for the selected command. It records names such as json, never values passed to options.
An actor (human, agent, automation, or unknown) and a source such as cli, editor, chat, or auto.
An outcome (ok, error, usage_error, help, or cancelled), a count, elapsed milliseconds, the local calendar date, and the SASE version.

The spool uses private local files and is folded into a local daily ledger by the hourly footprint_fold housekeeping job. A full daily file stops accepting CLI records after 32 MiB; a small drop record reports skipped lines when space remains.

What it never records¶

Footprint does not store command arguments, option values, prompts, free text, paths, project names, usernames, hostnames, process IDs, or session IDs. Custom plugin names collapse to one plugin:~third_party ID. Actor and source are closed enums, not identity strings.

Pytest runs are excluded by default. Set SASE_FOOTPRINT=test only for isolated recorder tests; those writes pass the SASE pytest state-write guard.

Turning it off¶

Run sase footprint mode off to stop recording new CLI hits. Run sase footprint mode local to resume. With no mode file, the effective mode is local.

SASE_FOOTPRINT=off disables recording for one process and takes precedence over the mode file. sase footprint mode prints the effective mode and a short disclosure. The mode switch does not delete records already in the spool.

Status and clear¶

Run sase footprint status to see the effective mode, privacy summary, first recorded day, ledger size, spool backlog, catalog revision, seven-day coverage, and any dropped, torn, or unknown-ID records. Status folds pending spool data when the last fold is more than ten minutes old. Use -f json for the ledger status wire data.

Run sase footprint clear to remove the ledger and spool. The command asks for confirmation; pass -y to skip the prompt. Clearing advances a generation number so TUI counts buffered before the clear are discarded. The recording mode stays as set.

The hourly footprint_fold job ingests a changed catalog, folds pending spool lines, applies spool retention, and prunes old daily aggregates. It skips a pass when the ledger is busy. sase doctor warns when local recording has unfolded spool bytes older than three days. The first fold that stores records adds one disclosure notification to the inbox.