Data & Storage

AI Chat stores everything inside your application: structured data in your App's database via OrmLite, and files under App_Data. There is no external service holding your conversation history.

Database tables​

Tables are created on startup when AutoInitSchema is true (the default), using the host's IDbConnectionFactory - or a named connection if you'd rather keep chat data separate:

services.AddPlugin(new ChatFeature {
    NamedConnection = "chat",
    AutoInitSchema = true,
});

ChatThread​

One conversation. Complex fields are stored as raw JSON strings so the wire shape matches the OpenAI format exactly, and are only parsed at the DTO boundary.

StreamingMessage is deliberately separate from Messages: a failed or abandoned stream can never damage the durable conversation, and checkpointing writes one small column rather than rewriting the whole thread.

ChatRequest​

Per-completion accounting behind the Analytics dashboards - user, thread, model, provider, duration, token counts, prices, cost, finish reason, and Error/StackTrace when a completion fails.

ChatMedia​

The generated and uploaded media catalog - name, type, prompt, model, cost, seed, dimensions, size, duration, aspect ratio, content hash, reactions, caption, tags, rating and publish state. Written by the gallery extension from a cache-saved filter. See Voice & Media.

Gemini tables​

The gemini extension owns its own document catalog tables, created the same way. See Gemini File Search.

Querying​

They're ordinary OrmLite tables:

using var db = dbFactory.Open();

var recent = db.Select<ChatThread>(db.From<ChatThread>()
    .Where(x => x.User == userName)
    .OrderByDescending(x => x.UpdatedAt)
    .Take(20));

AdminQueryChatRequests additionally exposes ChatRequest as an AutoQuery API for admins.

File storage​

Rooted at App_Data/chat by default, overridable with AppDataPath:

Per-user layout​

With RequireAuth = false everything runs as the default user, so all of the above lives under user/default/.

Path resolution is guarded: any relative path that would escape App_Data/chat throws UnauthorizedAccessException.

The content-addressed cache​

Attachments, generated images and audio, and Gemini document uploads are all hashed with SHA-256 and stored once under cache/{first 2 chars}/{sha256}.{ext}. The same file uploaded twice costs one copy.

Cache writes fire the cache_saved filters, which is how the gallery records media and how an App can hook uploads:

ctx.RegisterCacheSavedFilter(saved => {
    Log.LogInformation("Cached {Url} ({Size} bytes)", saved.Url, saved.Size);
});

Cached files are served at {RoutePrefix}/~cache/{path} to authenticated users.

Seeded config files​

llms.json, providers.json and providers-extra.json are seeded from embedded defaults on first run and then belong to you - edit them, check them into source control, or bypass them entirely by setting ChatFeature.Config in code. See Providers & Models.

PDF storage​

PdfFeature uses a separate root, App_Data/pdf by default:

See Rendering PDFs.

Backup and deployment​

Back up together:

• Your App's database (threads, requests, media, Gemini catalog)
• App_Data/chat - config, cache and every user's workspace
• App_Data/pdf - including .published.json and .versions

A database backup on its own is not sufficient: media rows reference cache files by hash, and Gemini document rows reference cached bytes.

Deployment notes:

• App_Data must be on durable storage. On an ephemeral filesystem, mount a volume or set AppDataPath to one.
• In a multi-instance deployment, App_Data/chat and App_Data/pdf need to be a shared volume - user workspaces, the cache and published templates are all filesystem state.
• Pin the Typst version and deploy the same fonts used during template validation.
• Consider a disk quota on App_Data/chat/user so a runaway Agent can't fill the disk.

Retention​

AI Chat doesn't expire data on your behalf. Threads, requests and media persist until deleted, which suits audit requirements but means retention policy is yours to implement:

// example: delete threads untouched for a year
using var db = dbFactory.Open();
var cutoff = DateTime.UtcNow.AddYears(-1);
var ids = db.Column<long>(db.From<ChatThread>()
    .Where(x => x.UpdatedAt < cutoff).Select(x => x.Id));

db.Delete<ChatRequest>(x => Sql.In(x.ThreadId, ids));
db.Delete<ChatThread>(x => Sql.In(x.Id, ids));

Deleting a user's folder under App_Data/chat/user/{user} removes their projects, profiles, skills, PDF workspace and preferences.