# Local folders > Local folders: what the collector reads, how to connect it, its permissions, its certification by Atlantic Agentic Labs and its security posture. Built, not certified Built and tested against recorded and synthetic responses (version 1.0.0, 10 November 2026). Not yet run against the vendor's sandbox or a client environment. Reads the documents in a folder on the deployment’s own storage: manuals dropped into an inbox, meeting transcripts, an export from another system, a synced Drive or SharePoint library. Each file becomes one document. It is the common landing place for anything that arrives as files, and it uses no network at all. ## At a glance | Collector | Local folders, version `1.0.0` | | --------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Reads | Atlantic Agentic Labs: Drop folder (files on the deployment's disk) ([the vendor's documentation](https://docs.atlanticagenticlabs.com/connect/upload/)) | | Family | Storage | | Kind | Files | | Ways to connect | None (no credential) | | Scopes | - Read: | | Read only | Yes | | Vendor's API can move money | No | | Personal data | Content | | Hosts it may contact | `localhost` | | Vendor API versions | none (local files) | | Lowest engine version | `0.45.0` | ## What it reads - Every file of an accepted type in the folder and its subfolders: `.md`, `.txt` and `.vtt` as text, and `.pdf` through `pdftotext -layout`. - A file may begin with front matter that sets its own `title` and a class (`doc_class`, `label` or `sensitivity`); your label scheme still decides whether that class is readable. - A file is read again only when its SHA-256 changes. A file that disappears becomes a tombstone, so the knowledge base stops citing a document that was withdrawn. - Files whose names start with `.` are ignored. ## How to connect 1. Put the folder where the deployment can read it (`path` is relative to the deployment’s working directory, or absolute). 2. Add a source card with `kind: folder`, the `path`, a `label`, and the `requires` block naming what is read and why. 3. The source is named `folder-` unless you give it a `name`. No credential is involved. Install `pdftotext` (poppler) in the image if the folder holds PDFs. ## Permissions Read access to the folder, and nothing else. The collector opens files for reading only; it never writes, renames or deletes in the folder, and it makes no network request. Its read-only test runs it against a folder the operating system will not let it write to and checks the folder is unchanged. ## Limits - A file of a type the collector cannot read **fails the pull**, and the error names the file (`is not an accepted format here`), because an unreadable document skipped silently is a gap nobody hears about. Narrow `suffixes` to accept fewer types. - PDFs need `pdftotext` and take at most 300 seconds a file. - There is no size limit per file; a very large folder is read in one pull. - The change test is the content hash, so a file touched but not edited costs a read of its bytes and nothing more. ## Data handling - Everything stays in the deployment: the folder and the corpus written from it are on its own storage. Only the counts (written, unchanged, quarantined, removed) reach LightHouse. - The document text may hold personal data of any kind; it is labelled by the source’s `label` (or the file’s own class) and handled under that label’s rules. ## Troubleshooting | What you see | What it means | What to do | | -------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `is not an accepted format here` | A file in the folder has a suffix the source does not accept | Remove it, or move it out; or accept the suffix if the collector can read it | | `no reader for` | The suffix is accepted by `suffixes` but the collector has no reader for it | Convert the file to text or PDF | | `pdftotext is not installed` | A PDF was found and the tool is not in the image | Install poppler-utils in the deployment image | | Read succeeded, 0 written | No file changed since the last read | Nothing to do | ## Certification Each entry is a run by Atlantic Agentic Labs, newest first. Only a run against the vendor’s sandbox or a client environment certifies a collector; a certification lasts six months, or less if the vendor publishes an API version the collector does not list. See [How collectors are certified](/collectors/certification/). | Date | Collector | Engine | Vendor API | Method | Expires | | ---------------- | --------- | -------- | ------------------ | ----------------------------------- | -------------- | | 10 November 2026 | `1.0.0` | `0.45.0` | none (local files) | Fixtures only: built, not certified | Not applicable | ## Security posture From the collector’s last scan on the default branch. What each line means, and what blocks a release: [Security posture](/collectors/security/). | Last scanned | 10 November 2026 | | -------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Critical findings | 0 | | High findings | 0 | | Medium findings | 0 | | Low findings | 0 | | Info findings | 0 | | Release blocked | No | | Network allow-list check | Pass | | Read-only behavioural test | Pass | | SBOM (CycloneDX) | Produced | | Dependency licences | Pass | | Scanners | bandit 1.9.4, semgrep 1.181.1, pip-audit 2.10.1, osv-scanner 2.7.0, cyclonedx-py 7.5.0, pip-licenses 5.5.5, gitleaks repository job aal-secrets, hosts_check tools/hosts_check.py, read-only test pytest -m read_only | Source: https://docs.atlanticagenticlabs.com/collectors/catalogue/folder/