Docs: encrypted-at-rest content can't be semantically searched server-side (relayer embeds what it receives)

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
65/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet

Research direction

Start by locating the encryption and recall documentation mentioned in the issue and review how each currently describes server-side embeddings. Document that encrypted payloads cannot be semantically searched by the relayer, while preserving the longer-term client-side or local-embedding idea as future work. Done means the tradeoff is explicit and the surprise is addressed.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Problem

The relayer generates embeddings from the bytes it receives. If a client encrypts payloads before sending them (encryption at rest, so the relayer never sees plaintext), the relayer embeds ciphertext, and server-side semantic recall no longer works. In practice you pick one: encryption at rest, or server-side semantic search — not both. We fell back to lexical ranking over transiently-decrypted plaintext in our own layer.

This is a reasonable consequence of the trust model, but it is not stated anywhere, and it is a surprise if you assumed both were available together.

Ask

  • Document the tradeoff explicitly in the encryption / recall docs.
  • Longer term: a client-side or local-embedding path so integrators can keep payloads encrypted at rest and still rank semantically.
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
107
Forks
37
Avg merge
3d 2h
Merged PRs (30d)
101

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