Security

Idlerate is built so your home PC does not open ports to the internet, and so a job from an agent cannot turn into a shell on your machine.

Outbound only

The Idlerate app on your PC opens an outbound websocket to https://relay.idlerate.dev. It does not listen for inbound connections. You do not need to change router settings, open firewall ports, or put the PC in a DMZ.

Agents never talk to your home IP. They talk to the relay with a key you created and can revoke.

What a job can do

A job from the relay asks your PC to run inference on a model that is already installed in Ollama (POST /api/generate). The client only accepts a short list of message types from the relay (hello, pairing, refresh models, job, cancel, ping, error). Unknown types are ignored.

A job cannot, through this connection:

Run a shell command or start an arbitrary process
Read or write your files
Pull, create, or delete Ollama models from the live relay path (model pull happens only when you install, or when you run ollama yourself)
Update Idlerate itself

What a holder of a valid key can do is queue text generation on models you already have installed, which uses GPU or CPU time and returns model output. That is the product. Jobs come from your own keys. Sharing is rolling out to accounts over the first weeks. Once it reaches your account, jobs can also come from other Idlerate users when you turn on sharing.

Shared jobs run under the same limits as your own: inference on installed models only. They can’t run code, start processes, or reach your files. Jobs that run on another member’s machine are processed in plain text on that PC, so its owner could see the prompt and output. Don’t send anything private to shared machines.

The app doesn’t save prompts or outputs on the PC; error messages from Ollama may include short fragments.

Idlerate never asks Ollama to pull models during a job. Keep Ollama updated (0.35.0 or newer; the Windows installer pins a current release).

Keys and sessions

Dashboard login uses an HTTP-only session cookie on relay.idlerate.dev.
Agents use bearer API keys (idr_v1_xxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxx). Revoke any key you no longer trust (Keys).
Prefer keys without keys:manage for day-to-day agents.

Pause or disconnect

You stay in control of when the PC accepts work:

Action	How
Pause one machine	Tray Pause, or Pause on that machine’s dashboard card
Auto-pause while gaming	Tray Pause while gaming (on by default)
Stop Idlerate on the PC	Tray Quit, or `idlerate.exe uninstall`
Cut off an agent	Revoke its key on the dashboard
Go offline	Sleep, shut down, or quit Idlerate — the machine shows Offline; new jobs will not run there until it reconnects

Queued jobs wait while a machine is paused. Sharing is rolling out to accounts over the first weeks. Once it reaches your account, your jobs stay on your own machines. They reach a shared machine only when you pick one for that job or turn on Auto overflow to shared machines, which is off by default. Shared machines take jobs first come, first served. A job never goes to a machine with sharing off.

Planned improvements

Changes we’re working on:

Tighter pairing (login required to complete a pair, rate limits, stricter local file permissions)
Client-side check that a job’s model is already on the local Ollama list before generate
Narrower default scopes for new agent keys
Stricter size limits on optional system / options fields

Practical habits

Treat agent keys like passwords; revoke on leak.
Do not run untrusted software that can read %LOCALAPPDATA%\Idlerate while a pairing code is on screen.
Only use the download link from your Idlerate email.