Install & first run

1. Download and install

Get the installer for your operating system from sonomos.ai/downloads. Locke runs on x64 Windows and Linux. It is not available for macOS. We plan to add this in a future release.

2. Linux: one privileged step, run by you

On Linux, installing the package is the only part that uses your package manager's privileges. After that, the app unpacks and verifies its own engine into your home directory (~/.local/share/sonomos/app) the first time it runs, as you, with no password. Screening your browser needs nothing more than that plus the extension.

Screening your desktop and command-line traffic needs root once, and Locke asks for it in the open rather than slipping it into the install. The last setup screen — and the Dashboard, until it's done — shows a card titled Finish setting up Locke. Choose Turn on protection and enter your password in the system's own dialog. What exactly will this do? on the card lists every step before you agree:

If this computer has no graphical way to ask for your password — over SSH, or at a text console — the card says so. Run locke setup-capture in a terminal instead (it asks for your password once), then come back and choose Check again.

3. The setup steps

The first time you open Locke, you sign in to your Sonomos account and a short setup runs. There's one screen per step, and you can go back.

1. Your Locke plan. Locke asks your Sonomos account which plan it is on and shows the answer: Free plan (“Locke, just for you”), Teams · Admin (“You're your team's admin”) or Teams · Member (“You're on a team”). There is nothing to choose — your plan belongs to your account, not to this screen. If you expected a team and Locke says You're not on a team yet, accept the invitation in your email and choose Check again; if it still doesn't show, sign out and sign in again. You can also Continue on the Free plan for now.
2. What Locke does for you — or, for a team admin, What your team gets. Three things to know before setup: what Locke checks for, that detected values become one-way tokens, and that detection runs on this device. On the Free plan and as a team member you see the first title; a team admin sees the second, with the same three points worded for IT. Choose Get started.
3. Prepare protection on this device. Locke offers to download its detection models: Download now or Later. The download carries on in the background if you continue.
4. Checking protection. Locke checks that its detection engine answers and scans one line of sample text. When both pass you see Protection check and sample test passed. If the engine is still loading, choose Retry, or Continue without the engine and come back to it later.
5. Protect your browser. Install Browser Protection — the Locke extension — from your browser's store. Locke names your default browser and links its store (Install for your browser); once the extension connects, choose Continue. Use another browser too? Each one needs its own copy. Set up later skips this for now.
6. Protection setup is ready. The last screen shows what the sample scan caught and lets you try a line of your own. On Windows it asks you to approve Locke's certificate; on Linux it shows Finish setting up Locke (section 2). Then Continue to Locke.

The detection engine itself is part of the install. The installer ships a starter set of detection models; setup offers to download the current ones now or later, and if you choose later, the Dashboard and Settings › Protection keep offering the same download for as long as the models are missing. After that, Locke keeps them up to date by itself. There is no size or tier to pick. There is no key to create, and setup does not ask you for one: a detected value is replaced by a one-way token derived from the value itself, so there is nothing to generate, store or lose.

The sample scan in Checking protection is worth reading precisely: it proves the detection engine is installed, running on this machine, and detecting. It is a direct scan, so it does not exercise capture — nothing was intercepted from a browser or a command line to produce it, and a green result here is not proof that either capture path is working. That proof is section 5, and it takes a real request from a real app.

4. The Getting Started card

When setup finishes you land on the Dashboard. Open Detailed status and diagnostics near the bottom and the first thing inside is a short checklist, Welcome to Locke. It tracks real progress, not clicks — each item ticks off when the thing has genuinely happened.

1. Check the detection engine. Nothing to click: it ticks off when the engine answers a health check, and the pill reads Answering, Not answering or Can't tell. An answering engine doesn't by itself confirm your traffic is routed through it — that's the last step.
2. Review configuration. Ticks off once you've opened Controls (Open Controls) and seen which AI apps and sites Locke covers. The defaults are sensible — this step is about knowing what they are. Team admins get one more step, Review local diagnostics (Open Reports), which ticks off when you open Reports.
3. See it protect something real. Ticks off when Locke masks or blocks something in actual use — not the sample from setup. This is the step worth waiting for.

Dismiss the card with Got it whenever you like. You can bring it back from Support › Replay the welcome guide.

5. Prove it works

The only real proof is a real request. Use ChatGPT, Claude, or any other app Locke protects, and send something recognizably yours — your own email address is the easy test. When Locke masks it, the last Getting Started step ticks off too.

1. Send the message. Locke masks your email address on the way out, and the AI receives a token in its place.
2. Back in Locke, the Dashboard's Recent activity lists the catch: the kind of value, the AI service it was headed for, and MASKED.
3. Open Activity in the sidebar and choose the event to see everything Locke recorded about it — metadata only, never the value itself.

What using it looks like from here

Nothing. That's the intended answer. Locke screens in the background and masks as it goes; while it is checking a request, the app's title bar shows Screening…. Closing the window doesn't stop it — the app is a window onto Locke, and Locke keeps running when the window is closed. If you'd rather not see the window at all, turn on Settings › General › Start minimized to tray. The app is there when you want to check on it, change what's protected, or pull a report — not something you need to visit.

The rest of this guide is a tour of what's inside for when you do. Start with The window. When you want it gone, Uninstall Locke says exactly what removal reverses on each platform, and what it cannot reverse for you.