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Authensia Cloud
Secure. Verifiable. End-to-end yours.
Authensia Cloud is an open-source, zero-knowledge cloud storage architecture designed around verifiable ownership, cryptographic integrity, privacy, interoperability, and long-term digital preservation.
Unlike conventional cloud storage platforms that primarily focus on synchronization and availability, Authensia Cloud treats every file as a verifiable digital asset with cryptographic authenticity, provenance, controlled access, version history, and lifecycle auditing.
Files can be encrypted before transmission, cryptographically signed, content-addressed, versioned, synchronized, audited, and continuously verified throughout their lifecycle. The architecture is designed for creators, businesses, researchers, governments, educational institutions, organizations, and privacy-conscious individuals who require secure storage without surrendering control of their data.
Vision
Build a cloud storage architecture where users control their data, encryption, identity, provenance, and trust.
Authensia Cloud is designed around five principles:
- End-to-end ownership
- Cryptographic verification
- Zero-knowledge privacy
- Open modular architecture
- Long-term digital preservation
Specification
Authensia Cloud consists of a lightweight storage engine surrounded by modular core services and optional plugin modules.
Core modules provide the fundamental storage, security, identity, verification, synchronization, metadata, sharing, search, auditing, and administration capabilities.
Optional plugins extend the system with specialized functionality without requiring those capabilities to become dependencies of the core platform.
Each module has a defined responsibility and communicates through documented interfaces and APIs.
Core Modules
Cloud Storage Engine
The Cloud Storage Engine provides the foundational storage and retrieval layer.
Features
- Object-based cloud storage
- Large file support
- Automatic file chunking
- Multipart uploads
- Parallel uploads and downloads
- Incremental synchronization support
- Background synchronization
- Resumable transfers
- Cross-platform compatibility
- Storage optimization
- Intelligent deduplication
- Hot storage
- Cold storage
- Configurable storage policies
- Storage lifecycle management
End-to-End Encryption Engine
The End-to-End Encryption Engine protects user data before it leaves the user’s trusted environment.
The architecture is designed so that the storage host cannot decrypt user file contents.
Features
- Client-side encryption
- Zero-knowledge architecture
- User-controlled encryption keys
- Per-file encryption
- Folder-level encryption
- Secure key generation
- Key rotation
- Secure key export
- Secure key import
- Recovery keys
- Hardware security module support
- TPM support
- Secure Enclave support
- Encrypted data in transit
- Encrypted data at rest
- Cryptographic verification of encrypted objects
- Encryption-aware synchronization
- Encryption-aware versioning
- Encryption-aware sharing
Where technically applicable, sensitive metadata can also be encrypted to reduce information exposure to storage operators.
Identity and Authentication
The Identity and Authentication Module manages user identities, authentication, devices, sessions, and access credentials.
Features
- Multi-factor authentication
- WebAuthn
- Passkeys
- Hardware security keys
- OAuth support
- Role-based access control
- Team permissions
- Device authorization
- Session management
- Recovery keys
- Device trust management
- Granular permissions
- Account security controls
Verification Engine
The Verification Engine establishes and continuously evaluates the cryptographic integrity of stored objects.
Features
- BLAKE3 hashing
- Content-addressed storage
- Cryptographic file signatures
- Ed25519 signatures
- Integrity verification
- Tamper detection
- Corruption detection
- Duplicate detection
- Automatic integrity scans
- File validation
- Continuous verification
- Cryptographic object identity
- Verification status records
Provenance Engine
The Provenance Engine records the lineage and origin of digital assets.
Features
- Verifiable ownership records
- File authorship records
- Creation timestamps
- Modification timestamps
- Cryptographic provenance
- Immutable provenance history
- Attribution records
- File lineage
- Provenance export
- Independently verifiable provenance records
- Provenance-aware version history
- Provenance-aware sharing
Version Control Engine
The Version Control Engine preserves changes to digital assets throughout their lifecycle.
Features
- Complete version history
- Immutable version history
- File snapshots
- Version restoration
- Timeline browsing
- Branching
- Merge support
- Conflict resolution
- Version comparison
- Historical recovery
- Point-in-time restoration
- Version integrity verification
Metadata Engine
The Metadata Engine manages descriptive, technical, administrative, and user-defined metadata.
Features
- Custom metadata
- Automatic metadata extraction
- Metadata indexing
- Tags
- Labels
- Categories
- Metadata validation
- Metadata export
- Metadata versioning
- Configurable metadata policies
- Metadata encryption where applicable
- Metadata integrity verification
Audit Engine
The Audit Engine maintains verifiable records of system activity and file lifecycle events.
Features
- Immutable audit trails
- User activity logs
- File access history
- Upload history
- Download history
- File modification history
- Sharing history
- Administrative activity logs
- Permission-change records
- Security event logging
- Audit reporting
- Exportable audit records
- Cryptographic audit integrity
Search Engine
The Search Engine provides authorized discovery across stored content and metadata.
Features
- Full-text search
- Metadata search
- Tag search
- Label search
- File-type filtering
- Date filtering
- Advanced filtering
- Saved searches
- Search indexing
- Search across version history
- Search across authorized shared content
Synchronization Engine
The Synchronization Engine maintains consistency between authorized devices and cloud storage.
Features
- Real-time synchronization
- Multi-device synchronization
- Delta synchronization
- Bandwidth optimization
- Conflict detection
- Conflict resolution
- Offline queues
- Resumable synchronization
- Selective synchronization
- Background synchronization
- Encryption-aware synchronization
- Version-aware synchronization
Sharing Engine
The Sharing Engine provides controlled access to files and folders.
Features
- Private file sharing
- Folder sharing
- Team collaboration
- Permission-based sharing
- Read-only sharing
- Share expiration
- Password-protected links
- Download restrictions
- Upload restrictions
- Access monitoring
- Share revocation
- Activity monitoring
- Cryptographically verifiable shared files
- Encrypted sharing
Collaboration Engine
The Collaboration Engine supports controlled multi-user work with version and permission awareness.
Features
- Team workspaces
- Shared folders
- File comments
- File activity
- Permission-aware collaboration
- Version-aware collaboration
- Conflict detection
- Conflict resolution
- Collaborative review
- File approval workflows
Resilience Engine
The Resilience Engine protects stored data against corruption, hardware failure, infrastructure failure, and regional outages.
Features
- Multi-region replication
- Geographic redundancy
- Self-healing storage
- Automatic corruption recovery
- Replica verification
- Background integrity checks
- Disaster recovery
- Configurable redundancy
- Storage health monitoring
- Failure detection
- Automated data reconstruction
Administration Engine
The Administration Engine provides management and operational controls.
Features
- User management
- Organization management
- Storage analytics
- Usage monitoring
- Device management
- Permission management
- Security monitoring
- System health monitoring
- Storage capacity monitoring
- Audit reporting
- Administrative policies
- Configuration management
Preservation Engine
The Preservation Engine supports long-term digital preservation and portability.
Features
- Immutable archival versions
- Cryptographic integrity checks
- Preservation metadata
- Long-term provenance
- Archive snapshots
- Migration verification
- Exportable preservation packages
- Portable file records
- Independent integrity verification
- Preservation-oriented storage policies
- Long-term version retention
Portability Engine
The Portability Engine ensures users can move their data and associated verification records between systems.
Features
- Exportable files
- Exportable metadata
- Exportable provenance records
- Exportable audit records
- Portable cryptographic proofs
- Migration support
- Cross-provider replication
- Self-hosted deployment
- Federation support
- Vendor-neutral storage interfaces
API and Integration Engine
The API and Integration Engine provides standardized interfaces for applications, services, and external systems.
Features
- REST API
- gRPC API
- API authentication
- API authorization
- Webhooks
- Event streams
- SDK support
- CLI support
- Integration endpoints
- Plugin interfaces
- WebAssembly module support
- API documentation
Optional Plugin Modules
Optional plugins extend Authensia Cloud without expanding the required core platform.
Plugins must use documented interfaces and must not compromise the core security, privacy, verification, or ownership model.
AI Assistant Plugin
Provides optional artificial intelligence capabilities.
Features
- Automatic file tagging
- Content categorization
- Duplicate analysis
- Document summaries
- Metadata suggestions
- Intelligent search assistance
- File relationship discovery
- Content classification
- Automated document organization
- AI-assisted verification workflows
AI processing must respect the platform’s encryption and privacy architecture. Encrypted user content must not be exposed to an AI service without explicit authorization and an appropriate decryption workflow.
Blockchain Verification Plugin
Provides optional public verification capabilities.
Features
- Blockchain timestamping
- Public proof of existence
- Cryptographic hash anchoring
- Verification certificates
- Multi-chain support
- Independent verification records
- Public integrity proofs
Blockchain infrastructure is optional and is not required for core Authensia Cloud functionality.
Digital Notary Plugin
Provides independently verifiable digital certificates.
Features
- Proof-of-authorship certificates
- Timestamp certificates
- Signature verification
- Certificate generation
- Certificate export
- Long-term archival records
- Independent verification
- Verifiable provenance packages
Compliance Plugin
Provides optional enterprise compliance capabilities.
Features
- Data retention policies
- Legal holds
- Compliance reporting
- GDPR-oriented controls
- HIPAA-oriented controls
- SOC 2-oriented reporting
- Access reporting
- Data governance policies
- Controlled deletion workflows
- Regulatory audit support
Specific compliance requirements remain dependent on deployment configuration, organizational practices, and applicable law.
Backup Manager Plugin
Provides advanced backup functionality.
Features
- Scheduled backups
- Versioned backups
- Snapshot backups
- Disaster recovery
- Geographic backup redundancy
- Cold storage
- Backup verification
- Backup restoration
- Automated backup policies
- Backup retention policies
Media Toolkit Plugin
Provides media management capabilities.
Features
- Image previews
- Video previews
- Thumbnail generation
- Media metadata extraction
- Streaming previews
- Batch media processing
- Media indexing
- Media organization
- Media transcoding
Developer Toolkit Plugin
Provides additional development utilities.
Features
- REST API extensions
- GraphQL API
- SDKs
- Webhooks
- Event streaming
- Plugin SDK
- CLI utilities
- API authentication
- API access controls
- Developer documentation
- Automated integration workflows
Federation Plugin
Provides cloud interoperability.
Features
- Multi-cloud synchronization
- Cross-provider replication
- Federation between Authensia Cloud servers
- Hybrid cloud deployments
- Edge node support
- Distributed storage nodes
- Cross-provider verification
- Portable storage architecture
- Federation-aware identity
- Federation-aware permissions
Workflow Automation Plugin
Provides configurable automation.
Features
- Event triggers
- Scheduled workflows
- File processing workflows
- Approval workflows
- Automated notifications
- Conditional actions
- Integration automation
- File lifecycle automation
- Automated verification workflows
- Policy-driven processing
Enterprise Identity Plugin
Provides enterprise authentication and identity integration.
Features
- LDAP
- Active Directory
- OpenID Connect
- SAML
- Enterprise SSO
- SCIM provisioning
- Centralized identity management
- Enterprise group synchronization
- Enterprise access policies
Analytics Engine Plugin
Provides storage and system intelligence.
Features
- Storage forecasting
- Usage analytics
- Capacity planning
- File growth reports
- Access statistics
- Performance dashboards
- Storage utilization analysis
- Transfer analytics
- Synchronization analytics
- System performance analysis
Security Model
Authensia Cloud is designed around a security model in which the storage provider does not inherently possess the ability to decrypt user file contents.
The architecture separates:
- Identity
- Authentication
- Authorization
- Encryption
- Key management
- Storage
- Verification
- Provenance
- Auditing
- Administration
Security controls should follow least-privilege principles and should minimize the amount of information available to storage operators.
The platform should support independent verification of stored objects without requiring access to plaintext content.
Technology Stack
The reference architecture may use:
- Rust
- Go
- BLAKE3
- Ed25519
- gRPC
- REST APIs
- WebAssembly
- Kubernetes
- React
- Svelte
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- S3-compatible object storage
The architecture is modular and may support alternative implementations where interoperability and security requirements are preserved.
Open Architecture
Authensia Cloud is designed to avoid unnecessary vendor lock-in.
The architecture supports:
- Open APIs
- Modular services
- Optional plugins
- Self-hosted deployments
- Cloud deployments
- Hybrid deployments
- Multi-cloud deployments
- Federation
- Portable data
- Portable metadata
- Portable provenance
- Portable cryptographic proofs
- Vendor-neutral storage interfaces
Governance
Authensia Cloud development should use transparent, documented processes for major architectural changes.
Governance may include:
- Public technical proposals
- RFC processes
- Security reviews
- Architecture reviews
- Versioned specifications
- Documented API changes
- Backward compatibility policies
- Transparent contribution records
Specification Branding License (SBL)
Standard
- Fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant system
- Copyleft enforced for network deployments
- Required attribution:
- Roxanne Ardary
- https://www.roxanneardary.com/
Optional
- Specification Branding License (SBL)
- Attribution-free commercial deployment
- Pricing based on scale, usage, and deployment scope
- https://roxanneardary.com/appnest/
License & Notice Requirements
AuthensiaCloud is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).
By contributing to this project, you agree that your contributions will also be released under this license.
Please note the following:
- All contributions must comply with the AGPL-3.0+ terms.
- Under Section 7 of the license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works must preserve attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
- AuthensiaCloud specifications are free to use with attribution. A Specification Branding License can be negotiated upon request.
- The project’s notice.md file tracks attribution requirements and contributor acknowledgments.
- Any update that adds new contributors or modifies attribution should also update notice.md.
- When submitting a pull request, ensure that any new files maintain the attribution headers where applicable.
- Network-deployed versions of this software must also remain fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant, including exposure of source code modifications when applicable under the license.
For full legal details, please refer to the AGPL-3.0+ license and the project’s notice.md file.
Notice – AuthensiaCloud
Attribution Requirement: Under Section 7 of the AGPL 3.0+ license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works, including network-deployed versions of this project, must provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
Contributors
This file tracks contributors and their specific contributions to the project.
- Roxanne Ardary, roxanneardary.com – March 20, 2026
Created the repository for AuthensiaCloud. Developed the core open-source systemic cloud storage platform featuring immutable, content-addressed, end-to-end encrypted storage with verifiable attribution, automatic versioning, and compliance-ready audit trails. - Add other contributors here – [Date]
[Describe contribution in one sentence]
License – AuthensiaCloud
This repository is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).
Key Points
- You are free to use, modify, and distribute the code.
- All redistributions, forks, derivative works, and network-deployed versions must also be licensed under AGPL-3.0+ and provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com as required under Section 7 of the license.
- The software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind.
For the full license text, see GNU AGPL-3.0 License.