The plain-English version, in one page. The longer answer is the source itself — the engine is open code, and this page links to the exact places to check.
Reference import works on audio files you own and choose — a WAV from your library through the file picker. Kontinuum decodes it, measures tempo, energy and onset density, and adapts its generators to what it heard. The file is never uploaded, never copied anywhere, and is released by the app the moment you close the picker.
Your reference audio is analyzed in memory and then it is gone — there is no cache, no upload, no copy on a server. Provider API keys live in the device Keychain, never in the app bundle, never in analytics. Kontinuum has no account system and no server that could hold any of this.
A Soul is a bundle of numbers that shapes the composer — harmony vocabulary, groove character, instrument choices, arrangement habits. It is learned from how you react to sessions, or from audio you own. It never contains your audio, and you can read, export or delete it. Souls you publish carry only the musical recipe, never your files.
Your audio files. Your sessions. Your taste model. Your Souls. Your API keys. The music itself — Kontinuum composes on-device and works with the network fully off.
The one thing that can cross the network is the composer's text traffic, and only if you connect a cloud model (OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini) with your own key. The default composer is on-device. Unplug the key and the app is fully offline.
The import path accepts files you pick. There is no link-based or streaming import anywhere in the app — we removed it rather than gate it. Search the code for yourself: there is no YouTube, no third-party media fetching, nowhere to send your file.
The same seed always produces the same music — that is the determinism gate the engine is tested under. The engine crates, the IR schema and the validator are MIT- licensed and readable by anyone.
A music tool that uploads your library would deserve your distrust. Kontinuum's whole design — composition on your device, your taste as local state — only makes sense if your music stays yours. This page is the commitment; the licence and the source are the enforcement.