Where does Yaak store my data and does it require an account?

Yaak stores your work locally on your machine, and you do not need an account to use it. The desktop app keeps requests, folders, and environments in local files, sends API requests directly to the servers you target, and requires no sign-in or automatic cloud sync. Secrets can be encrypted with keys held in your operating system's keychain, the desktop app reports zero telemetry, and the source is MIT-licensed so you can inspect or build it yourself.

That answer covers the default desktop experience. The picture changes only if you deliberately opt into sharing or team features, which are described below.

What "local-first" means in practice

Yaak describes itself as a local-first API client: your requests live on your machine and are versioned with Git. Concretely, that means:

• Storage is local. The desktop app stores your work on your computer rather than in a vendor cloud.
• Requests go direct. API calls are sent straight from your machine to your servers, not routed through a Yaak-hosted platform.
• No dashboard, no cloud platform. There is no web dashboard layer sitting between you and your requests.
• You choose what to share and where. Sharing is a decision you make, not a default.

This is the core of the privacy question: nothing leaves your machine unless you take an action that sends it somewhere.

Does Yaak require an account?

No. According to the site, the desktop app requires no account, and there is no automatic cloud sync. You download the app, and your work stays local.

The one place accounts appear is team licensing: per-seat licenses are managed in one place, and organizations can sign in with OpenID Connect and provision members through SCIM. That is an organizational feature, not a requirement for individual desktop use.

How your data is stored and shared

Because each request, folder, and environment is its own YAML file, your API collection behaves like ordinary source code: you can commit it, review diffs, and share it through the Git workflow your team already uses — no proprietary cloud required.

How secrets are protected

Yaak offers optional encryption for secrets you want to share. When enabled, secrets are encrypted with keys stored in your operating system's keychain, and access is managed through your Git provider's existing permissions. So the security boundary is your OS keychain plus whatever access controls your Git host already enforces — not a separate Yaak-managed vault.

What about AI agents and the CLI?

Yaak is built for agents but ships without built-in AI. Instead of an AI sidebar, you connect agents through a CLI or an MCP server plugin (for Claude, Cursor, and similar tools). The important detail for data control: agents work with your existing requests rather than maintaining a separate collection, and changes made through the CLI show up in the app. You can install the CLI skill with yaak agent install.

This keeps the same local-first model — the agent operates on the same workspace, not a parallel cloud copy.

When this fits your requirements

Yaak's storage and privacy model suits you if:

• You want your API requests on your own machine, under your own control.
• You prefer versioning through Git rather than a proprietary sync service.
• You don't want to create an account just to send requests.
• You need to audit or self-build the client (MIT-licensed source).
• You want agents to work on your existing requests without a separate collection.

It may not fit if you specifically want a hosted, always-synced cloud workspace with no local files — Yaak's model is the opposite by design, and sharing is something you opt into through Git or team licensing rather than a default cloud account.

For current pricing and team-seat details, see the pricing page; the site lists per-seat licenses for teams of any size, but exact figures are not stated in the material here.