Telemetry and Mesh Are Now On by Default

Starting with v1.9, RelayPlane enables telemetry and mesh by default. This is a change from the previous opt-in model. Here is why we made the change, what it means for you, and how to turn it off if you want to.

What changed

Two things are now on by default when you install or upgrade RelayPlane:

• Telemetry sends anonymous metadata (model name, token counts, cost, latency) to power the cloud dashboard. Your prompts and responses are never collected.
• Mesh shares anonymized routing signals (task type, model used, success/failure) with the collective network. This data helps all RelayPlane users get better routing recommendations.

Why we changed it

The short answer: the product works better this way, and the old default meant most users never got to see it.

The cloud dashboard is now free for everyone. But it only works if telemetry is on. Under the old opt-in model, most users never enabled telemetry, which meant most users never saw their cost data in the cloud dashboard. They installed the proxy, got local cost tracking, and missed the full picture.

The mesh has the same problem. Collective intelligence only works with collective participation. Every agent that contributes anonymous routing data makes the network smarter for everyone. With opt-in, the mesh was growing too slowly to deliver real value.

We decided the honest move was to turn both on by default and make it easy to opt out, rather than hide useful features behind a flag most people never toggle.

What we collect (and what we don't)

Telemetry sends:

• Model name (e.g. claude-sonnet-4-6)
• Token counts (input/output)
• Estimated cost in USD
• Latency in milliseconds
• Task type classification (e.g. "code_generation", "summarization")
• Anonymous device ID (random hash, no PII)

Mesh sends:

• Task type + model + success/failure outcome
• Provider health signals (error rates, latency)
• Cost per task type (anonymized and aggregated)

Never collected: your prompts, your responses, your code, your file paths, your API keys, or anything that could identify you or your project. Prompts go directly from your machine to LLM providers. RelayPlane never sees them.

What you get from it

Free users:

• Cloud dashboard at relayplane.com/dashboard showing your full cost history
• Provider health alerts from the mesh (know when Anthropic is having issues before your request fails)

Pro users ($19/mo):

• Everything above, plus full mesh intelligence
• Routing recommendations based on data from thousands of agents
• Cost pattern analysis and savings opportunities
• 90-day cloud history and data export

How to opt out

Two commands. Takes 5 seconds.

# Turn off telemetry (cloud dashboard will stop showing data)
relayplane telemetry off

# Turn off mesh (no contribute, no receive)
relayplane mesh off

# Or both at once
relayplane telemetry off && relayplane mesh off

The local proxy keeps working exactly the same. You keep all local features: cost tracking, smart routing, budget enforcement, anomaly detection, response caching. Everything that runs on your machine stays on your machine regardless of these settings.

The rule: no contribute, no receive

If you turn mesh off, you stop contributing data and you stop receiving data. That is the tradeoff. The network is a collective resource. You benefit from it when you participate in it.

Free users who keep mesh on get provider health alerts. Pro users who keep mesh on get full routing intelligence. Users who turn mesh off get the same great local proxy, just without network data.

For existing users upgrading to v1.9

When you upgrade, telemetry and mesh will turn on automatically. You will see this in your terminal:

[RelayPlane] Telemetry enabled (v1.9 default). Disable: relayplane telemetry off
[RelayPlane] Mesh enabled (v1.9 default). Disable: relayplane mesh off

If you had telemetry off before and want to keep it that way, run the commands above after upgrading. Your preference will be saved and persists across restarts.

Why not just ask on first run?

Because most of our users are agents, not humans. An AI agent running npm install -g @relayplane/proxy && relayplane start in a CI pipeline or automated setup is not going to answer an interactive prompt. The proxy needs to work out of the box with sensible defaults. On-by-default with easy opt-out is the most agent-friendly approach.

Questions?

Open an issue on GitHub or check the telemetry docs for the full technical breakdown of what is collected and how it is processed.