Trash, history and activity

A team keeps three kinds of records about its shared vaults:

	On by default	Who sees it	How long it is kept
Trash	Yes	Anyone who may add items in the vault	30 days after the deletion
Version history	No, an owner turns it on	Owners, and those who manage the vault	Each version 30 days after it was replaced
Activity	No, an owner turns it on	Owners only	90 days, and all of it deleted when turned off

Version history and activity are tracking: what the team keeps about how its members use the vaults. The owners choose it, everyone in the team can see what is on, and everyone else is told when an owner changes it. Your personal space is never part of any of this.

What this team records

On Team, then Rules, the section What this team records shows what is on. Its badge says Nothing recorded or Recording. Every member sees it.

• Version history: earlier versions of the vaults’ items, with who changed them and when, for owners and those who manage a vault. It counts from when it is turned on, and each version is kept 30 days.
• Activity: what members do with the vaults’ items: showing or copying a secret, exporting, connecting. Only owners read it. It is kept 90 days, and deleted when turned off.

Before you accept an invitation, it tells you what the team records, for example “This team records: version history, activity. You are told if that changes.”, or This team records nothing about how you use it.

The section can also show Devices and Sign-in addresses. This version of ZestSSH collects neither of them: their rows appear only while a newer app has them on, so that an owner can turn them off.

Change what the team records (owners)

1. Open Team, then Rules, and find What this team records.
2. Switch Version history or Activity on or off, then choose Save.
3. Change what Example Ops records? says that everyone in the team is told and what is on after the change. Turning version history on adds Version history starts now: nothing changed before is shown. Turning activity off adds The activity recorded so far is deleted.
4. Choose Change it, and sign in again if asked.

Everyone else in the team is told, for example “Example Ops now records more about its members”, with who changed it and what is on now. On a device that opens the team for the first time, its person is told once what the team records.

Only owners change it. Everyone else sees Only owners change what the team records.

Trash

The trash is always there. It is not tracking: it holds the items deleted from a vault, for anyone who may add items there.

1. Open Team, then Vaults, and open the vault: on a computer, click it to open its pane; on a phone, its settings are on its card. Under Records, choose Open trash on the Trash row.
2. Trash of Production lists what was deleted there in the last 30 days. Each item says Gone for good on and a date. While version history is on, each also says who deleted it.
3. Choose Bring back. The item goes back where it was, for everyone in the vault, as a change of yours.

Bringing an item back is adding it, so it needs permission to add in the vault (the Edit and Manage access levels have it; see Vaults, access and roles). Without it, the trash says Bringing items back here needs permission to add in this vault.

Items moved to another vault are not in the trash, and neither are items that are back already.

Version history

While version history is on, owners and those who manage a vault can see its changes and put back an earlier version.

See a vault’s changes

1. Open Team, then Vaults, and open the vault (its pane on a computer, its card on a phone). Under Records, choose View changes on the Changes row.
2. Changes in Production lists, newest first, who changed, deleted or brought back which item, and when by their device’s clock. It starts with the date version history was turned on. Show older reads further back.
3. To undo a change, choose Put back the version before, then Put it back. Everyone in the vault gets the version from before the change, and the change stays in the history.

A deletion goes back from the trash, not from here.

See one item’s versions

On a computer, select a host on Hosts and choose Version history in its panel, or select a key on Keys, choose Edit, and choose Version history there. The link shows to owners and those who manage the item’s vault, while version history is on. Versions of web-01 lists the version the item has now, marked Now, and each earlier one with who wrote it and when. Choose Put this version back to make an earlier one current again: everyone in the vault gets it, and the versions after it stay in the history.

Putting a version back needs Edit in the vault.

What version history counts from

• Only versions replaced since version history was last turned on. Turning it off and on again starts it afresh: what changed before is not shown.
• ZestSSH Cloud keeps every earlier version of an item, sealed with the vault’s key, for 30 days, whatever the team records. That is what the trash brings back. While version history is off, it hands none of them out as history.

Activity

While activity is on, each member’s device notes what its person does with the vaults’ items and sends it with the next sync, sealed with the team’s key. Only owners read it.

A member	The activity page says
opens a key whose password or private key the app shows them (opening its editor is enough: Edit on Keys on a computer, or opening the key on a phone), counted once in 10 minutes per key	priya@example.com opened the secrets of deploy-key
copies a key’s private key	priya@example.com copied a secret of deploy-key
exports a key’s private key	priya@example.com exported deploy-key
connects to a host in a terminal, or runs a command on it with Run on hosts	priya@example.com connected to web-01

Read the activity (owners)

1. Open Team, then Activity. Only owners have this page.
2. Events are listed newest first, each with the time by the member’s device clock and the vault. Show older reads further back.

While activity is off, the page says so and offers Open rules.

Each event names its member inside the sealed note. An owner’s device shows it only when that is the account ZestSSH Cloud says sent it, so neither ZestSSH Cloud nor another member can pass an event off as someone else’s. Events that do not open, or do not match, are left out, and the page says how many: “Some events could not be checked and are not shown (2).”

What activity does not record

• Nothing while activity is off. Notes a device was still holding are dropped, not sent later.
• Nothing a session shows on screen. That is what team session logs are for.
• No devices and no sign-in addresses.

What ZestSSH Cloud can see

• Versions and deletions are sealed with the vault’s key. Who deleted what is inside the sealed deletion.
• Activity is sealed with the team’s key. ZestSSH Cloud knows which account sent each note and when it took it, but not what the note says.
• What the team records is in the team’s signed record, so ZestSSH Cloud holds itself to it: it serves history only while version history is on, takes activity only while activity is on, and deletes the activity when it is turned off.

Limits

• Times are the members’ clocks. A change’s time and an activity’s time come from the member’s device.
• The trash lasts 30 days. After that a deleted item is gone for good.
• No history from before. Version history never shows a version replaced before it was turned on.
• Devices that never sync. A device keeps up to 500 notes waiting, the oldest dropped first, and sends them with its next sync. Notes from a device that never syncs again never arrive.
• A daily cap. ZestSSH Cloud takes up to 5,000 activity notes a day from one member in one team. Past that, notes wait on the device.
• Items only. The trash and version history cover a vault’s items. Changes to members, roles and the team’s settings are in the team’s record: every member sees them on the Trust page.

Next steps

• Event export: send the team’s record changes and activity, signed, to a system of your own.
• Team rules: the Rules page, where what the team records is set.
• Team session logs: logs of sessions to a vault’s hosts.
• Team-pinned host keys: pins are vault items, so they have versions too.
• Team recovery: two owners give a member who lost every device their access back.