The account question
For this local-first release, Kerna does not need signup. You initialize a workspace on your machine, bring the model provider you choose, and retain the ability to inspect or remove your local data.
What this means in practice
Avoiding accounts removes a first-run barrier and respects the product’s trust posture. It also means user count needs an honest definition.
GitHub Release download totals and npm’s aggregate package-download reports tell us that artifacts were fetched. They cannot distinguish one person reinstalling from ten people trying Kerna, nor prove that anyone completed a useful task.
If Kerna later adds telemetry, it should be opt-in, anonymous, and content-free: product version, platform, a rotating random install identifier, and outcome counters such as first receipt completed. Never send goals, tool arguments, task traces, tokens, or workspace contents.
For the first cohort, the reliable signal is a voluntary acceptance record: whether each participant reached a useful local result in 15 minutes, understood approvals, and reported a privacy or policy issue.
A future shared-policy, team governance, or hosted-connector experience may need identity. That is a separate product decision with a clear data model, not a default requirement for personal Kerna use.
A better north star
Track activation through a first useful receipt, retention through recurring reviewed routines, and trust through clear approvals and zero unapproved external side effects. None of those require reading a person’s work.
See meaningful workflowsFirst cohort
✓ never substitute downloads for trust
Ready to try it
Start locally. You can inspect the source, the release assets, and every subsequent task receipt.
Download Kerna