Data privacy & zero retention
Inspectr runs locally. By default your API traffic never leaves your machine, and there is no hosted service in the path. When you choose to expose a local service, the optional Ingress relay forwards traffic without storing the payloads.
Local by default
Your traffic stays on your machine, with no hosted service in the path
In-memory processing
Inspectr Ingress handles payloads transiently without any storage.
0 bytes
Stored on the Inspectr Ingress relay
The architecture
Inspectr runs as a local proxy between your client and your backend. In the default path, no hosted service is involved at all, so your traffic never leaves your machine. Only when you expose a local service does traffic travel through Inspectr Ingress, and even then the relay forwards it without keeping a copy.
Source
Running on your machine or local network
Local
Inspection, history, and replay, all in your environment
Your environment
Your real API, mock, or catch endpoint
Inspectr Ingress, a relay tunnel
When you tunnel a local service, public traffic enters through Inspectr Ingress, travels to your local Inspectr instance, and reaches your backend. The Ingress layer connects the outside world to your environment. It does not build a hosted copy of the traffic it forwards.
Source
Your users, apps, or third-party services
Pass-through only
Forwards requests and responses; no persistent payload storage
Your environment
Inspection, history, replay, and application storage
Local layer (the default)
The local proxy receives the traffic and powers inspection, history, replay, and forwarding to your backend, all on your machine. Any operation history is held in your environment and follows your configuration.
Local retention under your control
Hosted layer (only when exposed)
Ingress is the public relay used with tunnel and --expose. It accepts the connection, forwards the request and response, and does not persist the proxied payload content.
Zero payload retention on the hosted relay
When you expose a service
When you tunnel a local service with --expose, Inspectr Ingress is a transparent relay, which moves traffic between your public endpoint and your environment. It does not store the traffic, so sensitive payloads stay with the systems your team controls.
Traffic is handled in memory for the live request only, and is never written to disk on the relay.
Ingress forwards the request and response between the public endpoint and your environment.
Request and response payloads are not persisted on the relay.
Local history and replay remain in the environment your team operates.
Data handling
In local mode there is no hosted service to store anything. When you expose a service, Inspectr Ingress forwards request and response content to your environment and releases it after the relay. It does not persist payloads. Any history or persistence happens in your Inspectr instance or downstream systems, where your team controls storage and retention.
Local Inspectr: request history and replay can be stored locally under your control.
Your application: data written to your own backend, database, warehouse, or downstream tools follows your policies.
Metadata: limited technical and security telemetry may be retained for DDoS protection, reliability and abuse prevention.
Privacy by architecture
When a public request arrives at an Inspectr Ingress endpoint, the relay forwards it to your local Inspectr instance. Inspectr can then inspect, store, replay, or forward the operation according to the configuration in your environment.
The hosted ingress layer does not retain the proxied request or response content after the live relay. That distinction keeps the third-party service boundary small while preserving the debugging workflow developers need.
This works alongside transport encryption, access controls, and your own retention policies. It is not a replacement for them. Review the Termsand Privacy Policy for the complete service boundaries.
Questions, answered
No. This is the default for most Inspectr usage: local traffic goes directly to your Inspectr Proxy and never leaves your machine. Inspectr Ingress is involved only when you use the tunnel or --expose option to make a local service publicly reachable.
No. Inspectr Ingress does not store request or response payloads sent through the relay. It forwards traffic to your Inspectr instance without creating a persistent hosted copy. Zero data retention is part of how Ingress is built, not an optional setting added after the fact. Your local Inspectr instance and your own application may store traffic according to your configuration and retention policies.
Yes. Inspectr’s local application can keep request history and support replay in your environment. That local storage is separate from the hosted Ingress relay.
The zero-retention commitment is about proxied payload content. Limited technical and security telemetry may be processed for DDoS protection, reliability and abuse prevention, as described in the Privacy Policy.
A caching proxy keeps a copy and may serve later requests from that copy. Inspectr Ingress forwards the live request to your environment and does not create a persistent hosted copy of the proxied payload.
No. Once traffic that reaches your Inspectr instance, backend, database, analytics tool, or another downstream service, its retention is governed by that environment’s configuration and policy.
See the full request path, keep control of local history, and expose your services with a relay built to pass traffic through.