Frequently Asked Questions

Guardian is a desktop governance application that helps engineering teams maintain code quality and security standards. It provides real-time monitoring of a selected workspace, architecture and quality audits, and an AI assistant (Guru) that can explain findings and suggest fixes.

Guardian is designed for engineering teams of all sizes who want to enforce code quality standards without slowing down development. Whether you're a solo developer, a startup, or an enterprise team, Guardian scales to your needs. It's particularly valuable for teams working with sensitive codebases or those needing to maintain strict compliance standards.

This repository is licensed under MIT. If you are using a fork or a packaged distribution, check the LICENSE file shipped with that build for the definitive terms.

Guardian is available for macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon), Windows (64-bit), and Linux (AppImage and deb packages). We automatically detect your operating system and provide the appropriate installer.

Simply visit our download page and click the download button. We automatically detect your operating system and provide the best installer for your platform. After downloading, run the installer and Guardian will guide you through the initial setup.

Guardian is designed to be lightweight. Typical requirements: macOS 12+, Windows 10+, or a recent Linux distribution. At least 4GB RAM and ~500MB free disk space. Internet access is required if you enable cloud AI providers or in-app update checks.

After installation, select a local workspace folder. Configure your AI provider settings in Settings, then start monitoring to scan and review findings. Documentation covers the main workflows and configuration options.

Guardian works with one active workspace at a time. You can switch between projects by selecting a different folder; Guardian will reset the monitoring state and load the new workspace context.

Guardian analyzes your workspace locally. If you configure a cloud AI provider, the app will send selected context to that provider to answer questions or generate suggestions. API keys are stored using OS secure storage where available.

Guardian is designed to keep analysis local by default. When you enable integrations (AI providers, web search), the app will make outbound requests to those third-party services you configure. Guardian does not require a Guardian-managed backend service.

Guardian supports device authorization for identity verification. For AI analysis, it supports multiple providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, hosted models, and local models via Ollama.

Guardian applies security-oriented best practices (local-first scanning, least-privilege configs, signed update capability). Exact guarantees depend on your deployment setup and which integrations you enable.

Guardian works with any local Git repository, regardless of where it is hosted (GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, etc.). You simply open your local repository folder in Guardian.

Guardian is designed to complement your existing toolchain. It runs alongside your IDE and other tools, providing real-time governance and auditing without interfering with your workflow.

Guardian enforces a combination of built-in checks and workspace rule sets. Today, extensibility is primarily configuration and rule-file based (not a visual rule builder).

Start with the documentation on this website. For issues and feature requests, use the repository issue tracker for the build you are using.

Use the repository issue tracker for the build you are using, and include reproduction steps plus logs/screenshots where possible.

Updates are delivered through the in-app updater when enabled, and new releases may also be available via the distribution repository.

Contributions depend on the repository you are working in. In general, bug reports and documentation improvements are always helpful.