User Guide

Setup wizard

On first launch, a guided wizard walks you through initial configuration. You can re-run it from Settings at any time.

1. Welcome — overview of what Bleep does and how it works.
2. License — sign in with your email (sends a one-time code) or enter a license key directly. Your plan and seat info are displayed after validation.
3. Certificate — installs a local CA certificate so Bleep can inspect HTTPS traffic to AI services. You'll be prompted by your OS to trust the certificate.
4. Ports — choose the proxy port (default 8080) and PAC port (default 18080). Change these if another application already uses those ports.
5. System proxy — configures your OS to route AI traffic through Bleep using a PAC file (selective routing — only AI traffic goes through the proxy).
6. Health check — verifies license, certificate, proxy, internet connectivity, and protection status. All five checks must pass.
7. Done — setup complete. Bleep starts protecting immediately.

Header controls

The top bar is always visible and shows your protection status.

• Protection toggle — enables or disables traffic inspection. When off, traffic passes through without scanning.
• Mode selector — switch between Warning (caps all actions at Warn — nothing is blocked or redacted) and Enforcing (policies apply as configured).
• Alerts bell — shows the count of recent violations. Click to see the violations list.

Overview

The default screen after setup. Shows a summary of your protection activity.

• Stats cards — total violations, violations by severity, and violations by category.
• Timeframe selector — filter stats by Last Hour, 24h, 7 Days, 30 Days, or All Time.
• Charts — bar chart of violations by severity, and bar chart of violations by category.
• Connection status — shows proxy port, PAC port, bind address, license plan, and whether the proxy is running.
• Recent violations — the last 5 violations with timestamp, pattern name, severity, and action taken.

Violations

A full log of every detection event.

• Filters — filter by severity (Low, Medium, High, Critical), action (Logged, Warned, Redacted, Blocked), or search by pattern name.
• Violations table — each row shows timestamp, pattern name, severity badge, destination domain, direction (request/response), and the action that was taken.
• Detail view — click a violation to see the redacted preview (the actual sensitive content is never stored), matched pattern, and full request metadata.
• Export — export violations as CSV for compliance records.

Policies

Configure what Bleep detects and how it responds. The Policies screen has several sub-sections:

Test scanner

Paste any text to test it against your current detection patterns. Results show which patterns match, their severity, and what action would be taken.

Blocklist

Add exact values (strings) that should always be detected. When a blocklist value is found in a request, it triggers a violation just like a pattern match. Useful for known sensitive values like specific API keys or internal project names.

Detection patterns

Bleep ships with 6 built-in patterns (OpenAI API Key, Anthropic API Key, AWS Access Key ID, AWS Secret Access Key, Stripe Secret Key, Google API Key — all severity High). You can add custom patterns with a name, regex, severity level, and optional tags.

Policy rules

Rules determine the action taken when a pattern matches. Each rule specifies a condition (severity level, tags, or destination category) and an action (Log, Warn, Redact, or Block). Rules are evaluated by priority: Block > Redact > Warn > Log.

Destinations

The list of AI service domains that Bleep monitors. Domains are organized by category. You can enable or disable individual domains or entire categories. Custom domains can be added for internal AI tools. The built-in list updates automatically and merges with your customizations.

Settings

• Notifications — toggle desktop notifications for violations (enabled by default), set the minimum severity level to trigger notifications, and configure a cooldown period between alerts to avoid spam.
• Network Ports — change the proxy port and PAC port without re-running the setup wizard.
• Appearance — light or dark theme.
• Re-run setup wizard — start the setup wizard again to reconfigure license, certificate, or ports.

System tray

Bleep runs in your system tray (Windows) or menu bar (macOS). The tray icon shows a green dot when protection is active. Right-click for quick access to show/hide the window, toggle protection, or quit.