Create a safe companion for a child

Compose OpenHuman's autonomy, approval, and content-screening controls into a locked-down assistant for a child, with an honest account of the limits.

Goal: set up the most restricted, supervised version of OpenHuman you can, intended for a child to use with an adult present.

Read this first. It is an honest warning. OpenHuman has no dedicated "child mode", no age verification, and no content filter on what the model says. There is no certified parental-control product here. What you can do is compose the existing safety controls into a tightly locked-down setup. That reduces risk; it does not make an AI assistant a safe, unsupervised experience for a child. Adult supervision is the control that matters most. Do not rely on software alone.

This guide is about stacking the real controls that exist, and being clear about what they do and don't cover.

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Prerequisites

• OpenHuman set up on the machine the child will use. See Create my personal AI assistant.

• An adult who owns the account and stays involved.

Privacy implications

• Keep it local. Use a local model so conversations aren't sent to a cloud provider, and connect no personal integrations.

• Do not connect a child's accounts. The safest memory is minimal memory.

What each control actually does

Control	What it protects against	What it does not do
Read-only autonomy	The assistant taking any action (sending, writing files, running commands, or reaching the network on its own)	Doesn't filter what it says
Approval Gate (on)	Any state-changing/network action slipping through without an adult's yes	Doesn't review conversation content
Workspace-only + blocked system dirs	The agent touching files outside a small folder, or any credential/system directory	Doesn't restrict what topics come up
Prompt-injection screening	Attempts (in pasted text) to hijack the assistant's instructions	Isn't a general content moderator
No integrations connected	The assistant pulling in or acting on personal data	(Nothing; not connecting is the whole control)

The honest gap: none of these filter the model's language or subject matter. That gap is filled by an adult in the room and by persona instructions, not by a setting.

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Steps

1. Set the strictest autonomy tier

Settings → Agents → Agent access:

• Autonomy: Read-only. The assistant can talk and answer, but cannot act, write files, or reach the network on its own.

• Keep workspace-only on.

• Keep the Approval Gate on. (With Read-only, acting is blocked outright anyway. Leave the gate on as a second layer.)

• Review the auto-approve list and remove anything you don't want running without a prompt.

2. Keep inference and data local

• Turn on a local model, then route chat and reasoning at the local provider so conversations run on-device. Enabling Local AI alone keeps only embeddings/memory local. Chat still uses the default cloud route until you point the chat/reasoning workloads at the local provider and confirm with a test message.

• Connect no integrations. Don't sign the child's accounts in.

3. Write a protective persona

Edit the behavior prompt (SOUL.md, via the Brain page /brain) to set age-appropriate rules directly. For example: "You are talking with a child. Keep language simple and kind. Refuse and redirect anything violent, sexual, frightening, or unsafe. Never give instructions that could cause harm. Encourage them to ask a parent." Persona instructions are your main lever over content, since there's no built-in filter.

4. Supervise, and test first

• Sit with the child, at least at first.

• Before handing it over, try to break it yourself: ask it things a child might, and confirm the persona redirects appropriately.

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Success checks

• Autonomy is Read-only; workspace-only and the approval gate are on.

• No integrations are connected.

• Inference is local (ready), so conversations aren't going to a cloud provider.

• In your own testing, the persona refuses and redirects unsafe prompts.

• An adult is present for use. (This is a check, not a nicety.)

Common failures

Symptom	Cause	Fix
It produced content you consider inappropriate	There is no content filter; the persona alone governs tone	Strengthen the SOUL.md rules; supervise; this is an inherent limit of the tool
It tried to do something (send/open/fetch)	Tier isn't Read-only	Set autonomy to Read-only in Agent access
Conversation went to the cloud	Local AI isn't on	Turn on a local model and confirm ready
The child reached settings and changed things	OpenHuman has no separate child login	Use OS-level user accounts/parental controls to lock down the machine itself

Recovery

• Instant lockdown: set autonomy to Read-only (if it drifted). Acting stops next turn.

• Reset persona: revert your SOUL.md edits to defaults if the customization misbehaves.

• The real recovery is supervision. If the experience isn't right for the child, step in. No software setting substitutes for that.

See also

• Keep sensitive data private: the controls this guide stacks.

• Approval Gate: how actions are gated.

• Privacy & Security: autonomy tiers and path hardening in depth.