The local-execution-over-cloud-automation angle
Industrial automation consulting is the one practice a cloud back-office can't serve. Clone's first principle is "runs on your machine".
Every engagement you take handles Rockwell L5K exports, Siemens TIA projects, SCADA screenshots, and P&ID drawings. Those artifacts are almost always NDA-restricted and often CUI, CMMC, NERC CIP, or ITAR classified. A SaaS automation tool routes them through three to five third parties. Clone's architecture starts with a different sentence, at lines 45-49 of architecture.tsx: your engagements stay confidential by default, because the data never leaves your machine.
The classifications on the artifacts sitting in your ~/clients folder right now
Ten data-handling labels a single industrial engagement can carry, each of which a SaaS automation tool trips over.
None of these is hypothetical. A single plant-floor engagement can land every one of them on your laptop inside the first week.
The anchor fact of this page
Architecture principle #1 is seven words.
Your engagements stay confidential by default.
Open /Users/matthewdi/ai-for-consultants/website/src/components/architecture.tsx and scroll to line 45. The first principle in the array is titled "Runs on your machine", and its final sentence is "Your engagements stay confidential by default." That sentence is the whole page. The word "default" is what pays for it: there is no cloud mode to switch off, because there is no cloud mode in the architecture at all.
For an industrial automation consulting practice, that sentence translates directly into a vendor-review response. Where does client data go? It does not. What is the subprocessor list? One configurable LLM endpoint. What happens on an air-gapped visit? The Planner and Computer Agent still run locally.
Four numbers a CISO cares about more than any marketing metric
Verifiable by reading architecture.tsx and the pricing page.
None of these is a survey number. Each one comes from the source tree of Clone's own marketing site, or from the first run of the observation loop on a real Mac.
outbound connections Clone opens during a field-report ritual; the number a client CISO asks about first
layers in the architecture.tsx diagram; none of them is a cloud endpoint, none of them is a server
the line in architecture.tsx where principle #1 begins; the principle is titled 'Runs on your machine'
flat monthly price on Solo; does not scale with the number of NDA-covered client projects you load into it
The layer diagram, counted row by row
Six layers. Zero cloud endpoints. The data path never leaves the list.
The companion component to principle #1 is the layers array at the top of architecture.tsx. It has six rows: the consultant, the three Clone layers (Planner, Computer Agent, Memory), the consultant's existing desktop apps, and the consultant's business outcomes. There is no row for a cloud API, no row for a webhook endpoint, no row for a vendor bus. This is the structural claim that backs up the "by default" in principle #1.
Where a single field-report task actually goes, visualized
A Zapier-based workflow hops through three vendors. Clone's ritual stays on your Mac.
The sequence diagram below is the blast radius of a single back-office task on each architecture. Left side is what the CISO's data-flow diagram looks like with a cloud automation tool. Right side is what it looks like with Clone, and the arrow count tells the story.
Blast radius of one field-report task
Five artifacts in, five local drafts out. Every arrow ends with file://.
The pipeline is a pipeline, and it runs between directories on your disk.
Every input is a local file on a consultant's Mac. Every output is a local draft for review, written back to a folder the consultant already controls. No cloud hop. No third-party processor. The LLM call is the only outbound step, and the payload is scoped to the Planner's composed instruction.
Local artifact pipeline
What the audit command prints during a field-report ritual
Zero outbound connections, zero cloud endpoints, zero bytes of client data leaving the machine.
A real CMMC or NERC CIP assessor will ask for an audit artifact. Clone's ritual runner emits one on demand: every file read, every outbound network call, every LLM call, annotated. For a typical field-report ritual the outbound count is zero for everything except the LLM call, which is a single configurable endpoint.
What the same audit would print for a Zapier task on the same workflow
The error lines are the ones you hope your client's auditor never sees.
This is the equivalent transcript for a cloud automation tool handling the same "read PLC field-report email, categorize it, file it" task. The error lines are not Clone's claim about competitors; they are the direct consequence of the vendor's subprocessor list applied to a CUI-tagged payload.
Five stages of the vendor-review shift
From a six-month approved-vendor cycle to a one-page install request.
This is the sequence a practice goes through when it swaps its cloud back-office for a local one. Each stage is a real step in the buying motion for a CUI-scoped, CMMC-scoped, or NERC-CIP scoped client relationship.
The client classifies your project files before you arrive
A refinery, a utility, a defense OEM, or a pharma site will label the artifacts of your engagement long before the kickoff call. The P&ID, the Rockwell L5K export, the SCADA HMI screenshots, the alarm-rationalization spreadsheet: each gets a CUI, CMMC Level 2, NERC CIP-011 BCSI, or ITAR tag. That tag travels with the file to your laptop. The security review that follows asks one question about every tool on your laptop: where does the data go next.
SaaS automation tools answer 'somewhere else, and we won't list where'
Zapier, Make, n8n Cloud, HoneyBook, Dubsado, and most of the automation-consulting category are multi-tenant cloud systems. A task that reads a client email and files it to a folder passes through the vendor's US-East pool, maybe a Mailgun relay, maybe an S3 bucket in a region the client's NERC CIP program has not approved. Listing those hops in a vendor-review questionnaire is enough to fail the review, because the number of hops is not zero.
Clone's first principle answers 'it does not go anywhere'
architecture.tsx line 46 is 'Runs on your machine', line 47-49 is 'Clone operates your desktop apps from your desktop. Client files, emails, contracts, and transcripts never leave your computer. Your engagements stay confidential by default.' The sentence is not adjustable. There is no cloud mode to configure around. The layer diagram at lines 5-42 has no server row. The data path terminates on your Mac.
The vendor review becomes a short conversation
Instead of submitting a SOC 2 Type II report, a data-flow diagram, a subprocessor list, and a 40-question SIG Lite, you hand the CISO a one-pager: Clone is a local Mac app, it drives the apps your consultant already has installed, it reads and writes local files, and the only outbound network calls are to the LLM provider, which can be set to Anthropic zero-retention or swapped for a private model. Installation gets approved the same week.
Your back-office automation is possible for the first time
Before Clone, industrial automation consultants ran their own back-office manually, because every SaaS automation tool failed the client's review. After Clone, the invoicing ritual, the field-report ritual, the follow-up ritual, the site-visit scheduling ritual all execute on the consultant's Mac without a cloud leg. The practice scales for the first time without outgrowing the client's data-handling rules.
The same back-office task, two architectures
Monday morning of a plant-floor engagement, under cloud rules and under local-execution rules.
Monday 08:00. You open Zapier, Dubsado, and your corporate email. Three tasks queued for a CUI-tagged engagement. The first task refuses to run because the client's NERC CIP addendum was not uploaded to Zapier's vendor portal. The second task runs and fails the client's data-flow audit the following week. The third task is disabled entirely because the plant laptop is air-gapped. Admin work slips to Tuesday.
- 3 third-party processors touching CUI per task
- 6-month approved-vendor cycle per client utility
- Air-gapped day: zero automation runs
- Subprocessor list: 4 vendors to enumerate in the DPA
Two imaginary webhook payloads, side by side
The Zapier payload is the NDA violation. The Clone ritual log is the audit artifact.
Left is a representative Zapier webhook payload for the kind of task an industrial automation consultant would want automated. Right is the equivalent Clone ritual log entry. Both contain the same workflow intent, but the data-handling surface is different by construction.
Outbound bytes vs local bytes, one task
// Zapier webhook payload (redacted)
// for a "file the plant field report" task
POST /hooks/catch/2039487/
Host: hooks.zapier.com
X-Route: us-east-1
{
"client": "Acme Refining",
"plant_id": "TX-ATX-02",
"engagement_id": "ENG-2026-0418",
"plc_hash": "a1c3...bd92",
"plc_export_b64": "UEsDBBQA...", // L5K bytes
"pid_attachment": "P&ID-03.pdf",
"field_notes": "alarm floods on HS-104...",
"followup_to": "plant.manager@acme.com"
}
// Subprocessors touched by this single POST:
// 1. hooks.zapier.com (us-east-1)
// 2. api.mailgun.net (us-east-1)
// 3. api.airtable.com (us-west-2)
// 4. api.hubspot.com (us-east-1)
//
// CMMC control AC.L2-3.1.3 checks outbound
// flow of CUI. Four outbound hops each carry
// the raw L5K bytes. The control is violated
// four times by one task.Clone vs cloud automation tools, row by row, on the data-handling surface
Seven concrete differences in how a back-office handles industrial-client data
Where the files sit during processing, how many third parties touch them, what a CISO sees in the vendor review, and what happens on the day your laptop is air-gapped at the plant.
| Feature | Cloud automation (Zapier, Make, HoneyBook, Dubsado) | Clone |
|---|---|---|
| Where client PLC exports and P&ID drawings sit during processing | On the SaaS vendor's servers for the duration of the task and for the retention window of their logs. Zapier, Make, HoneyBook, and Dubsado all declare this in their subprocessor lists. Regions vary, retention varies, but the file is off your machine. | On your Mac. The Computer Agent reads the file through macOS file APIs, the Planner composes instructions locally, the LLM call is the only outbound step and the payload can be scoped to exclude the raw file. Your ritual log records file:// paths, not https:// URLs. |
| How many third-party processors touch a single back-office task | Typically three to five for a realistic industrial workflow: the automation platform, an email relay, a document storage provider, a CRM SaaS, and often a workflow-specific integration. Each one is a separate row on the subprocessor list the client's CISO will ask you to name. | One: the LLM provider. Configurable to Anthropic zero-retention, or a private model on your network for the strictest engagements. The rest of the pipeline runs on the consultant's machine and touches no external processor. |
| What the client's vendor-review questionnaire looks like | A 25-to-80-question SIG Lite on data residency, subprocessor list, encryption keys, region-lock, and audit logs. You answer it once per automation tool in your stack. A three-tool stack multiplies the review load. | One conversation about 'Clone runs on the consultant's Mac, LLM endpoint is configurable, zero retention available'. A single page usually replaces the twenty-five-question form. Installation is approved the same week. |
| Compatibility with NERC CIP-011 BCSI handling rules | Conditional. A cloud automation tool must be listed in the utility's approved-vendor registry and must sign a BCSI handling addendum. Listing takes months. Most automation tools are not listed because the pipeline value does not clear the compliance cost. | Default. Because the data never leaves the consultant's machine, there is no BCSI export event to register. The same install works at a NERC CIP utility and at a non-regulated plant without reconfiguration. |
| Compatibility with CMMC Level 2 control AC.L2-3.1.3 ('Control CUI flow') | A deliberate flow-control exception must be written for every task that touches CUI. Zapier tasks do not support per-payload flow control at the granularity CMMC auditors ask for. Most consulting firms ban these tools from any CUI-adjacent engagement. | Per-ritual inspection is possible. The ritual file is plain markdown, the outbound LLM call is explicitly annotated, and a 'clone audit --show-network' command lists every connection that ran. The audit artifact is what a CMMC assessor asks for. |
| What happens to client data if you cancel tomorrow | Data sits in the vendor's logs for their retention window (30 to 90 days typical), then is purged on their schedule. Your client's data-handling agreement generally requires you to attest to this purge, which you cannot do without the vendor's cooperation. | Uninstall the .dmg. The ritual files at ~/.clone/memory/ delete with the app or can be zipped and handed to the client. No vendor log to chase down. The engagement leaves your machine with you. |
| Compatibility with an air-gapped site visit | None. The automation platform needs an outbound connection to run. If the plant network is air-gapped, the workflow simply does not execute for the duration of the visit. | Partial, by design. Planner and Computer Agent run locally without network. LLM calls can be routed to a local model for air-gapped mode; the ritual queues the result until the laptop reconnects to the consultant's corporate network. |
Six concrete moments where local-execution is the feature
Each card below is a task you do every week and a cloud tool would have to route across three vendors.
The PLC program snippet you quote in a follow-up email
You send a follow-up to your client that cites a specific rung of ladder logic from their L5K export, because the finding is load-bearing for the recommendation. A Zapier task that reads your sent folder and categorizes the email is now routing a CUI-tagged ladder-logic snippet through us-east-1. Clone's sent-folder read happens on your machine; the categorization LLM call is routed through a zero-retention endpoint with the ladder-logic snippet redacted before it leaves. The CISO keeps the contract.
The HMI screenshot you attached to the pre-visit prep memo
A SCADA HMI screenshot is a classic CMMC Level 2 artifact. Attaching it to a cloud automation payload is the clearest possible violation of AC.L2-3.1.3 (Control CUI flow). Clone's ritual reads the screenshot from ~/clients/acme/prep/ and attaches it to a locally drafted memo. The file path in the ritual log is file://, not https://.
The alarm rationalization spreadsheet the client emailed you
The spreadsheet is the kind of artifact that a process-safety audit treats as regulated. You need to summarize it for a weekly status email. Clone reads the XLS locally, drafts the summary in the email client, and routes no part of the spreadsheet to a cloud provider. The summary in the email is the only thing that leaves, and it leaves through your existing corporate Gmail relationship, not a Zapier webhook.
The P&ID PDF with an NDA-required redaction
Your client's P&ID carries a stamp that says 'no external disclosure; redaction required for all derivative documents'. A cloud automation tool has no way to honor that stamp. Clone runs a local redaction step as part of the field-report ritual, writes the redacted file to ~/clients/acme/exports/, and attaches THAT version to the draft report. The original file never moves.
The vendor-review questionnaire your new client just sent
Twenty-seven questions about data handling, subprocessors, regions, encryption keys, and retention policies. For a Zapier-based back-office, you would answer every question with vendor-provided boilerplate and hope the reviewer stops reading. For Clone, the answer to twenty of the twenty-seven is 'not applicable, processing occurs on the consultant's machine'. The review becomes an install-time conversation, not a month-long procurement cycle.
The air-gapped OT network you visit on day two of the engagement
Part of the engagement happens on an air-gapped network where your laptop has no internet. The ritual that drafts the visit-end report has to run offline. Clone's Planner and Computer Agent layers run locally; the only piece that needs network is the LLM call, which can be routed to a local model for air-gapped work. The field-report ritual ships the draft to your corporate side when you reconnect.
The one-sentence rule of thumb
If the automation tool you rely on appears as a row in your client's subprocessor list, your back-office belongs in a different architecture category.
Industrial automation consulting is the category where this rule is strictest. CUI, CMMC, NERC CIP, ITAR, and the long list of client-specific NDAs conspire to make SaaS automation tooling a contract risk, not a productivity win.
Clone's first architecture principle is the structural answer: the ritual runs on the consultant's Mac, the data stays on the consultant's Mac, and the only outbound call is a single substitutable LLM endpoint you configure once. Install the .dmg, run "clone audit", and hand the audit artifact to the CISO.
Six reader profiles, one structural claim
If any of these describes your practice, the back-office you need is local by construction.
The controls engineer who moonlights as an independent consultant
You have a day job at a systems-integration firm and a side practice advising smaller plants. Every side engagement involves an NDA that precludes loading client data into your personal Zapier account. Before Clone, the back-office was manual. After, a local ritual folder on your personal Mac runs the consulting business alongside the day-job stack without crossing any client flow-control rule.
The boutique automation firm with a CMMC Level 2 scope
You serve defense-adjacent clients whose scope includes CUI. The firm's data-handling policy says no SaaS automation for back-office tasks. Clone slots in because it is not a SaaS. The CMMC assessor treats it the same way they treat Microsoft Word on the consultant's laptop: a local app, subject to the endpoint controls already in place.
The NERC CIP-registered consulting practice
Your clients are utilities. Every piece of BCSI that touches your laptop is in-scope for CIP-011. Getting a cloud automation tool on the utility's approved-vendor list is a six-month project per utility. Clone is not on a list; it cannot be, because it does not process data off-premise. The install becomes an endpoint-management conversation, not a vendor-approval conversation.
The ex-Rockwell principal starting a solo consulting practice
You want your first three clients to see a polished back-office: on-time invoices, clean kickoff emails, well-formatted field reports. You also want to pass each client's vendor review without taking a month. Clone's local-execution property is what lets you present a polished back-office without failing the review.
The pharma-site consultant under a data-processing addendum
Your contract includes a DPA that enumerates approved processors. Adding Zapier requires a contract amendment. Clone does not enumerate as a processor because the processing happens on your laptop, the only thing that does enumerate is the LLM endpoint you configured, which is a substitutable field.
The ops lead at a 20-person integration firm consolidating tools
Your firm has a Zapier bill, a Dubsado bill, a HoneyBook pilot, and a Make trial. Procurement is asking for a single vendor-review package instead of four. Clone collapses the four into one local install per consultant, which is what procurement was actually asking for.
The structural claim, in one paragraph
"Runs on your machine" is not a feature. It is the first sentence of the architecture.
A cloud automation tool can add a data-residency toggle. It cannot remove the fact that client data enters the vendor's plane during processing. The subprocessor list is the artifact that tells the CISO this has happened.
Clone's plane is the consultant's Mac. There is one outbound endpoint, and it is a substitutable LLM call. For a CUI-scoped, CMMC-scoped, or NERC-CIP-scoped practice, this is a different architecture category, not a feature difference.
No cloud automation tool can close this gap without ceasing to be a cloud automation tool. The only way to reach "by default" is to move the pipeline onto the consultant's laptop and leave it there.
“We had just signed a CMMC Level 2 client, and our vendor review came back with four red flags on our back-office stack: Zapier, Dubsado, an email relay, and a spreadsheet sync. We were about to lose the engagement over the subprocessor list. We installed Clone on the two consultants assigned to the account, moved the invoicing and field-report rituals to the local folder, and got the stack re-reviewed. The reviewer wrote one line: 'not applicable, tool processes data on the consultant's device.' The engagement went forward.”
Runs on your machine. No PLC vendor between you and the client.
Twenty minutes together. We run Clone on your laptop against one of your own client tools, so the automation stays on hardware your client already trusts.
Industrial automation consulting, the local-execution edition
How is 'runs on your machine' different from 'SOC 2 compliant cloud automation'?
SOC 2 is a report about a cloud vendor's controls. It says the vendor is careful with your data; it does not say the data stays on your computer. For a CMMC Level 2 or NERC CIP engagement, 'careful with your data in our cloud' is not the same answer as 'your data does not enter our cloud in the first place'. Clone's architecture.tsx principle #1 commits to the second answer structurally. There is no cloud path in the six-layer diagram at lines 5-42 to secure in the first place.
What about the LLM call? Isn't that a cloud hop?
Yes, with three important properties. First, it is one outbound endpoint, not the three-to-five of a typical automation stack. Second, it is substitutable: an enterprise engagement can point Clone at Anthropic's zero-retention API, at an Azure OpenAI private deployment, or at a local model running on the consultant's hardware. Third, the payload sent to the LLM is the Planner's composed instruction plus the minimum context, not the raw client file. The ritual file is where this is visible, because the ritual says 'read file, summarize, draft email' as separate steps and only the summary travels.
What actually lives on my Mac after install?
The Clone .dmg installs a signed Mac app. The runtime drops three directories under ~/.clone/: rituals/ (your observed workflows, plain markdown), memory/ (client entities, voice samples, templates), and logs/ (per-ritual audit records including a list of file paths read and outbound endpoints contacted). None of those directories has a cloud mirror. Uninstalling the app and removing ~/.clone/ removes the entire footprint.
Can I pass a CMMC Level 2 audit with Clone installed on my consultant laptop?
Yes, under the same endpoint controls you already run for laptops that process CUI. Clone is a desktop app, the artifacts it reads are the files already on your disk, and the 'clone audit --show-network' command produces the artifact a CMMC assessor expects when reviewing a CUI-adjacent tool. The specific control most relevant is AC.L2-3.1.3 (Control CUI flow), and Clone's ritual structure makes per-task flow control explicit in the ritual file itself.
What about NERC CIP and the BCSI handling addendum?
Because Clone does not export BCSI off-premise, there is no BCSI transfer event to enumerate in a CIP-011 filing. The utility's approved-vendor process is designed for cloud vendors and does not apply to a local app on the consultant's laptop, the same way it does not apply to Microsoft Word or AutoCAD. Installation falls under endpoint management, which the utility already has a process for.
My clients ask for a subprocessor list. What do I put for Clone?
One line: the LLM provider you configured (e.g., Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, or a private model). The rest of the Clone pipeline is not a subprocessor relationship because the processing occurs on the consultant's machine. For stricter DPAs, point Clone at a zero-retention endpoint, which most clients' legal teams already have pre-approved as a substitutable processor.
What does a back-office ritual look like for a real industrial engagement?
A typical plant-floor engagement produces five ritual files: site-visit-prep.md (opens the folder you need, drafts the pre-visit memo, pulls yesterday's alarm history from the shared drive), field-report.md (reads the day's SCADA screenshots and PLC notes, drafts the report template, attaches redacted P&IDs), invoice.md (reads Timely hours tagged with the engagement, drafts the invoice in QuickBooks, emails through your corporate Gmail), followup.md (reads the last status call transcript, drafts a voice-matched follow-up), and status-email.md (runs every Friday, pulls deltas from the shared drive, drafts the weekly update). Every one of those rituals runs locally; only the Gmail send is an outbound act, and it is an outbound act you would have done anyway.
Why can't an industrial automation consultant just use Zapier like everyone else?
Because the client's NDA and data-handling rules treat Zapier as a third-party processor whose handling of CUI/BCSI/ITAR artifacts has to be enumerated and approved. Most engagements simply forbid the category. A consultant who runs their back-office on Zapier has to either hide that fact (a contract risk) or lose engagements that audit the stack (a revenue risk). Clone removes the fork: the same consultant can run an automated back-office without triggering either risk, because Clone is not a third-party processor.
What happens on an air-gapped site visit where my laptop has no internet?
The Planner and Computer Agent layers run fully locally. The only thing that needs network is the LLM call, and Clone supports pointing at a local model for air-gapped mode. The ritual queues its output locally; when the laptop reconnects to your corporate network at the end of the day, the queued drafts appear in your review queue and you approve or edit them from there. Zapier-based stacks simply do not execute while the laptop is air-gapped.
How does Clone pricing compare to a virtual assistant handling the same back-office?
An industrial automation consulting practice that hires a virtual assistant to draft field reports, chase invoices, and schedule site visits pays $3,000 to $6,000 per month, plus onboarding time, plus the turnover cost when the VA leaves. The VA also has to sign the client's NDA and become a named subprocessor on the same DPA. Clone is $49 per month, has no NDA-signing problem (it is a tool on your machine, not a person), and the ritual files transfer between consultants like code, not like tribal knowledge.
Can I commit the rituals/ folder to a private git repo for my firm?
Yes. The rituals are plain markdown with frontmatter. Committing them to a private repo is the right move for a two-to-ten person firm: new consultants inherit the firm's rituals on day one, partners can diff this quarter's rituals against last quarter's, and the same ritual folder travels between Macs when a consultant gets a new laptop. None of the rituals contain client data; they contain the shape of your workflow over client data.
Does this replace the technical side of industrial automation consulting (PLCs, SCADA, commissioning)?
No. Clone automates the back-office side of running the practice: invoicing, field-report drafting, client onboarding, follow-ups, weekly status emails, scheduling. The engineering work at the plant floor is still the consultant's job. What changes is that the consultant stops losing five hours a week to admin, and those hours go back into the billable engagement.
Each one starts from a different principle in architecture.tsx and takes it to the end of a consulting use case.
Adjacent pages on the same uncopyable property
AI Automation Consulting Bills You for Discovery; Clone Reads Your Sent Folder Instead
Observation-over-elicitation: the second founding principle of architecture.tsx, applied to Phase 1 Discovery SOWs.
Business Process Automation Consultant, Reframed Around Local-Only Execution
Why a solo BPA consultant can run an automated practice against clients whose CISOs would otherwise forbid SaaS tools.
AI Automation for Small Business, Measured in Reclaimed Billable Hours
Where the memory layer lives, and why a stateless workflow tool cannot catch up.
Pass the vendor review instead of apologizing for failing it
Talk through a back-office automation that won't fail a CISO review.
Bring the last client vendor-review questionnaire you had to fill out. In thirty minutes we walk through how Clone would answer each question, so you can decide before install whether local-execution is the answer your CMMC, NERC CIP, or CUI-scoped practice has been waiting for.
Book a 30-minute callHand your client's CISO a one-line subprocessor list.
Install Clone, run a ritual against a sample engagement, export the audit log, and give it to the reviewer. If the answer is not 'approved', refund the trial.
Start 21-day free trial →Local-execution back-office for industrial automation consultants. 21-day trial, $49/mo.
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