> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.asklethe.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How LETHE works

> The current architecture behind chat, Studio, and the API, guest mode, accounts, and wallet-linked quotas.

LETHE is a chat and image-generation product in front of a developer API. Here's how a request actually flows today.

## Guest by default

You don't need an account to use LETHE. Every browser gets a small free allowance (currently 3 messages per network) tracked without a login. Chat and Studio history for guests is stored **locally in your browser** (`localStorage`). It never leaves your device unless you sign in.

## Optional account

Signing in (email magic link, Google, Discord, or an Ethereum wallet via Sign-In with Ethereum) moves your chat and Studio history into a Supabase-backed database, scoped to your account with row-level security. This gets you cross-device history, at the cost of that history living server-side rather than only on your device.

<Note>
  Signed-in history is stored as regular (unencrypted) rows in Postgres today. See [Privacy Model & TEE](/roadmap/privacy-and-tee) for the gap between this and LETHE's longer-term privacy goals.
</Note>

## Wallet linking for quota

Separately from account sign-in, you can **link a wallet** at [`/cli`](https://asklethe.ai/cli) to raise your daily limit (50 messages/day per UTC day) and receive a portable API key (`ltk_…`) you can use from any machine or CLI tool. This is a quota mechanism, not a payment. No funds move today.

## Model backend

Requests are routed to an upstream model provider through LETHE's inference gateway. The gateway normalizes everything to two public model ids, `lethe` (text) and `lethe-vision` (multimodal), and strips any upstream provider names out of responses before they reach you.

## What this is not, yet

The landing page also describes a longer-term vision: inference running inside a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) with cryptographic attestation of deletion, and pay-per-call access via x402 USDC micropayments instead of quota tiers. **Neither is implemented yet.** See the [Roadmap](/roadmap/privacy-and-tee) section for what's planned versus what's live.