Supported standards
Alcilla.Desk works with open standards. Email, calendars, documents, authentication, and AI models run on established protocols and formats rather than closed, vendor-specific interfaces. Your existing infrastructure remains connectable, and individual components can be replaced without changing the overall system.
All standards listed on this page are fully or partially implemented in the current version.
Note on feature scope The available functions depend on the Alcilla version in use, the operating model, and the connected services.
Alcilla communicates with any common mail server without a gateway in between and also understands what other programs send along. Connecting accounts and searching the mailbox are described under Email, calendars, and tasks.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| IMAP4rev1 / IMAP4rev2 | RFC 3501 · RFC 9051 | Reading, searching, flagging, moving, creating and renaming folders, over TLS (port 993) or STARTTLS. | full |
| IMAP IDLE | RFC 2177 | New mail arrives by push instead of the mailbox having to be polled. | full |
| CONDSTORE | RFC 7162 | Synchronization only fetches what has changed since the last run. | full |
| UIDPLUS and MOVE | RFC 4315 · RFC 6851 | Moving and filing in a single step; drafts are replaced without duplicates. | full |
| SPECIAL-USE | RFC 6154 | Sent, Drafts, Trash, Spam, and Archive are detected on the server, including for non-English folder names. | full |
| SMTP delivery | RFC 5321 · RFC 6409 · RFC 8314 | Sending over port 465 (TLS) or 587 (STARTTLS), TLS 1.2 at minimum. | full |
| SMTP AUTH | RFC 4954 | Authentication with PLAIN or XOAUTH2; credentials never sent over an unencrypted connection. | full |
| OAuth 2.0 for Microsoft 365 and Gmail | RFC 6749 · RFC 7636 (PKCE) | Sign in with the provider instead of an app password, for IMAP and SMTP alike. | full |
| JMAP | RFC 8620 · RFC 8621 | The modern mail protocol, including push, sending, and identities (e.g., Fastmail). | full |
| Internet Message Format and MIME | RFC 5322 · RFC 2045–2049 | Text and HTML with attachments; outgoing messages always include a plain-text version. | full |
| Accented characters in headers and file names | RFC 2047 · RFC 2183 · RFC 2231 | Subjects, names, and attachments arrive and are sent correctly with special characters. | full |
| Embedded images | RFC 2392 (cid:) | Images in the text are displayed and can be embedded while writing, including in the signature. | full |
| Conversations | Message-ID · In-Reply-To · References | Replies are assigned to their conversation and carry the references forward correctly. | full |
| X-Face | compface | The classic 48×48 sender image is displayed and can be sent with every mail. | full |
| Face | Face header (PNG) | The color sender image is displayed and can be sent along. | full |
| Auto-Submitted | RFC 3834 | Automatically forwarded mail is marked to prevent loops. | full |
| Mailing lists | RFC 2919 · RFC 2369 | List-Id and List-Unsubscribe identify newsletters. One-click unsubscribe is not available. | partial |
Outlook and Exchange
What comes from the Microsoft world is opened rather than left as an unreadable attachment—in the mailbox just as in your project folders.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| winmail.dat (TNEF) | MS-OXTNEF | Text, HTML, and all attachments are extracted from the container, including forwarded messages inside. | full |
| Compressed RTF | MS-OXRTFCP | The text of a mail that only carries RTF becomes readable. | full |
| Outlook messages (.msg) | MS-CFB · MS-OXMSG | Attached .msg files open like a normal mail. Stored .msg files in project folders are searchable including their attachments. | full |
| Exchange meetings | TNEF → iCalendar | Invitations from winmail.dat become regular calendar invitations. | full |
| Stored and attached mail | message/rfc822 · .eml | Forwarded mail in attachments can be expanded and is searched along with it. Stored .eml files in project folders are searchable including their attachments. | full |
| ZIP archives | ZIP · UTF-8 · CP850 | Contents are displayed and searched, in the mailbox and in project folders, up to three levels of nesting. Accented characters in file names are preserved, including from older Windows archives. | full |
Calendars and tasks
Appointments, invitations, and tasks run on open standards—with any CalDAV server and any mail program that understands invitations.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| iCalendar | RFC 5545 | Appointments and tasks with series, exceptions, time zones, and attendees; import and export as .ics files. | full |
| Mail invitations (iTIP / iMIP) | RFC 5546 · RFC 6047 | Inviting, accepting, declining, and withdrawing in both directions, also on behalf of others (SENT-BY). | full |
| CalDAV | RFC 4791 | Read and write appointments and tasks directly on the server, with clean conflict handling via ETags. | full |
| Calendar discovery | RFC 5397 · RFC 6764 | Your own calendars are found via current-user-principal and the well-known URI. | full |
| WebDAV | RFC 4918 | Used for what CalDAV needs: PROPFIND, properties, and ETags. | partial |
| CalDAV Scheduling | RFC 6638 | Detects the account’s default calendar. Invitations run via iMIP over mail. | partial |
| Access rights | RFC 3744 | Read-only calendars are detected and displayed accordingly. | partial |
| Calendar subscriptions | ICS over HTTPS | External calendars can be included as feeds, with caching and background updates. | full |
| Reminders | VALARM | A global reminder can be set for each appointment. Additional alarms are preserved when editing. | partial |
| Time zones | IANA tzdata · Windows zone names | IANA time zones are built in; common European and US Windows zone names are translated. | partial |
| Kanban via CalDAV | VTODO | A board can be stored as a task list on the CalDAV server; cards are regular tasks. | full |
Time tracking
Recorded time goes directly into the system you already use. The connection is described under Integrations.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clockify | REST API v1 | Read projects and entries, book time. | full |
| Kimai | REST API (Kimai 2) | Read clients, projects, and activities, book time. | full |
Authentication and security
Sign in through your existing identity provider, with an interface secured according to current web standards. An overview of data flows and protective measures is available under Security and data protection.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenID Connect | Core · Discovery · RP-Initiated Logout | Sign in with any OIDC provider, e.g., Keycloak, including logout there. | full |
| OAuth 2.0 with PKCE | RFC 6749 · RFC 7636 | PKCE (S256) is always enabled, also for confidential clients. | full |
| JSON Web Token | RFC 7519 · RFC 7515 · RFC 7517 | ID tokens are verified against the provider’s key set. | full |
| TLS | TLS 1.2 · TLS 1.3 | Encrypted connections outward and, once the instance is reachable on the network, inward as well. | full |
| HSTS | RFC 6797 | Browsers stay on HTTPS once TLS is active. | full |
| Content Security Policy | CSP Level 3 | Strict policy: only own scripts, no embedding in third-party pages. | full |
| Fetch Metadata | Sec-Fetch-Site · Origin | Protection against CSRF and DNS rebinding, even if the instance runs locally only. | full |
| Secure cookies | RFC 6265bis | HttpOnly, SameSite, and Secure, signed. | full |
| Signed updates | Ed25519 (RFC 8032) | Every update is checked against a built-in signature before installation. | full |
| Signed licenses | PASETO v4.public | Licenses are tamper-proof signed tokens. | full |
Compliance and evidence
What Alcilla consists of and how every vulnerability finding is assessed is documented in machine-readable standard formats.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBOM per CycloneDX | CycloneDX 1.6 · BSI TR-03183-2 | A reproducible bill of materials for all components for every version. | full |
| AI-BOM | CycloneDX ML-BOM | The supported AI models are listed with origin and license in a separate bill of materials. | full |
Documents
Alcilla works in Markdown and exchanges documents in the formats your office already uses.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Markdown | CommonMark | The working format for editor, notes, and knowledge base, including tables. | full |
| Callouts | > [!note] | Note boxes like in Obsidian and GitHub, also in the Word export. | full |
| YAML front matter | YAML | Metadata at the start of a document is read and used for indexing. | full |
| Word export | Office Open XML (.docx) | Export in custom layouts with cover page, header, and footer; as PDF via LibreOffice. | full |
| Diagrams | Mermaid | Diagrams from text, in the HTML editor and in the AI assistant. | full |
File formats
What is in your folders and mailboxes becomes searchable and can be viewed—even without Office on the computer. Depending on the format, a file can be searched, opened as a preview in the editor, or both.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Word, Excel, PowerPoint | Office Open XML (.docx · .xlsx · .pptx) | Office files become searchable and can be viewed in the editor, slides included. | searchable and viewable |
| PDF · OCR | PDFs with a text layer are read directly; scanned ones are recognized with a vision model; in redlined versions, deletions and insertions remain visible. In the editor, the original appears alongside. | searchable and viewable | |
| OpenDocument | .odt · .ods · .odp | Documents from LibreOffice and OpenOffice can be opened as a preview in the editor. They are not searchable. | viewable |
| Older Office formats | .doc · .xls · .ppt · .rtf · .ppsx | Can be opened as a preview in the editor. They are not searchable. | viewable |
| Web pages | HTML (.html · .htm) | Saved web pages become searchable as text. | searchable |
| AsciiDoc | .adoc | Technical documentation in AsciiDoc becomes searchable. | searchable |
| Tables as text | CSV · TSV | Become searchable as tables and are displayed as tables in the editor. | searchable and viewable |
| Text files | UTF-8 · UTF-16 · Windows-1252 | Plain text becomes searchable; accented characters also arrive correctly from old Windows files without a declared encoding. | searchable |
| Source code and configuration | YAML · JSON · XML · TOML · INI · SQL · Shell · PowerShell · Python · Go · Java · C/C++ · C# · JavaScript/TypeScript · PHP · Ruby · Kotlin · Scala · CSS · PlantUML · LaTeX · reStructuredText | Becomes searchable and stays code: a comment does not become a heading, and the structure is preserved. | searchable |
| Subtitles and transcripts | WebVTT · SRT | Become searchable, with speakers and time markers: who said what in the meeting is preserved. | searchable |
| Text in images | PNG · JPEG · TIFF · WebP | Scanned pages and screenshots in email attachments and in the AI Workshop become searchable via text recognition. Images in project folders are not read. | searchable |
| View images | PNG · JPEG · GIF · WebP · SVG · AVIF · BMP · ICO · TIFF | Displayed in the editor; SVG files without active content. | viewable |
| Archive formats | RAR · 7z · gzip/tar | Recognized as a file type, but cannot be opened. | – |
| File signatures | Magic bytes | An attachment is treated by its content, not by its extension: a PDF under a wrong name is still read, and a disguised file is not converted in the first place. | – |
AI and interfaces
You choose where your models run: locally, in your own data center, or with a provider. Model selection and Ollama are described under AI models and Ollama.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ollama API | Ollama | Local models for chat, embedding, and speech recognition. | full |
| OpenAI-compatible API | /v1/chat/completions | Any model server with this interface, e.g., vLLM or llama.cpp. | full |
| Anthropic Messages API | Messages API | Claude models as a provider, if you want that. | full |
| GGUF | GGUF | Alcilla.Engine runs models in GGUF format on ROCm, CUDA, and Vulkan. | full |
| Server-Sent Events | HTML Living Standard | Answers appear word by word; boards and calendars update live. | full |
| Web search via SearXNG | SearXNG JSON API | The AI research feature searches via your own search engine. | full |
| robots.txt | RFC 9309 | The AI research feature respects the rules set by web sites. | full |
| Notifications | ntfy · Webhooks | Events are sent to ntfy or to any webhook. | full |
Platform
Alcilla runs on the three major operating systems as a web app in the browser.
| Standard | Specification | What Alcilla does with it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux, Windows, macOS | PulseAudio/PipeWire · DirectShow · AVFoundation | The Minutes feature records on every platform via its native audio interface. | full |
| Audio formats | Opus · WAV | Recordings stored compactly as Opus or losslessly as WAV. | full |
| Web app | Web App Manifest | Alcilla can be installed as an app in the browser. | full |
| Desktop notifications | Notifications API | Notifications also appear when the tab is in the background. | full |
| Languages | German · English · Hungarian | Interface and legal texts in three languages. | full |