Data ownership and export

Your project and accounting data is the record of your business: every job, every cost, every change, every payment. It belongs to you. This page explains what that means in os.construction and how export is being designed.

The principle

Your data stays yours, and you can export it whenever you want. Not at contract end, not through a support ticket, not as a paid add-on. A system that holds your job cost history hostage is a system you cannot trust with it.

That principle shapes three design decisions:

1. Everything you put in can come out. Records, links between records, history and files.
2. In formats other tools can read. Open, documented formats, not a proprietary dump.
3. Without asking us. Export is a feature in the product, available to the people you authorize.

What you will be able to export

The intended formats are the boring, durable ones: CSV and spreadsheet exports for tables, JSON for structured records with their links, and original files for documents and photos.

Ownership in practice

• You own your data. We hold and process it to run the service for you.
• Agents work for you. AI agents read your data to do work for your company, under your permissions, and every action is approved by a person and recorded. How models are hosted and how data is handled will be shared with founding contractors before any agent runs on their jobs.
• Leaving is allowed. If you leave, you take everything with you.

Why links and history matter in an export

Many systems let you export tables. Fewer let you export the context. If you export a list of change orders and a list of pay app lines, you have lost which change order became which line, which RFI justified it, and who approved it. That context is what you need for a claim, an audit or a dispute two years after closeout.

Because os.construction keeps those links in the data core, an export can carry them too.

Exports for everyday work

Export is not only for leaving. Teams export all the time:

• To your CPA and surety: WIP schedules, job cost detail, over/under billing.
• To owners and lenders: pay apps, change order logs, lien waiver status.
• To your own analysts: structured data for tools like Excel or Power BI.

Those everyday exports respect permissions. Someone who cannot see margin in the product cannot export it either. See Roles and permissions.

Security

Security and hosting details are being finalized with the founding cohort. We will publish specifics when they are real. If your company has requirements around data residency, retention or security reviews, tell us early at hello@os.construction.