Principles

Cabinet is built around a few principles we think matter deeply for the future of AI + data tools. Every product decision gets weighed against these.

Yours

Your data stays yours: local, visible, and portable. It's not trapped inside a particular AI provider's system with no clean way to get it out. Plain markdown files on your disk. ls and you see your work. Move the folder, the cabinet moves with it.

Git everything

Memory should have history. You should be able to inspect changes, revert mistakes, audit how knowledge evolves, and treat your AI system like the important infrastructure it is. Every save auto-commits. Full diff viewer. Restore any page to any point in time.

BYOAI

Bring your own AI. Cabinet should work with Claude, Codex, OpenCode, local models, and whatever comes next, without forcing your knowledge into a single provider's ecosystem. See Bring your own AI for the supported list.

KISS

Keep it simple, stupid. AI tools should be understandable, inspectable, and hackable. We prefer plain files, clear behavior, and systems that developers can actually reason about. If a feature can't be explained in a paragraph, it usually shouldn't ship.

Security

We care deeply about security. If AI is going to work with your documents, research, plans, and internal context, the system should minimize surprise, reduce unnecessary exposure, and make trust a design requirement — not an afterthought. Every dispatched piece of work runs through a human approval queue before it touches the outside world.

Self-hosted

If AI is going to hold your context, plans, research, and operating memory, it should run in an environment you control. Cabinet is open source. Self-hosted by default. Your data never leaves your machine unless you point an agent at a cloud model — and even then, only the prompts and outputs of that one call.

How these compose

These six aren't independent — they reinforce each other:

• Yours + Git everything = your knowledge is auditable forever.
• BYOAI + Self-hosted = no vendor lock-in, no hostage data.
• KISS + Security = a system you can trust because you can read it.

If a feature would break any of these, it doesn't make it in.

Read on

• Philosophy — the 90-second pitch.
• Cabinet vs the alternatives — how these principles play out vs Obsidian and Notion.
• Bring your own AI — BYOAI in practice.