Telemetry, in plain words
Telemetry is how we learn which features get used and where errors happen, so we build the right things. Here’s the whole deal, in plain words.
Off until you say yes
Section titled “Off until you say yes”Nothing is collected by default. Workspace owners and admins see one prompt, once: help improve the product, yes or no. Whatever you answer is respected immediately and never re-asked. You can change your mind any time in Settings → Privacy.
What “on” actually means
Section titled “What “on” actually means”Anonymous usage events. Things like: an invoice was created (and how many lines it had, but never the amounts), an expense was logged (and whether a receipt was attached), a report was viewed, where someone gave up partway through a form. Each participating workspace is identified only by a random ID that has no connection to you, and that ID is thrown away and regenerated if you ever opt out and back in, so history can’t be stitched together.
Never collected, on or off: names, emails, phone numbers, invoice or expense amounts, customer or business names, document contents, search queries, IP addresses, or credentials.
The spec is public, word for word
Section titled “The spec is public, word for word”Every event we collect is listed in TELEMETRY.md, the versioned spec in the open repo, and the collection code itself is open source. Adding any new collection requires updating that document first, never retroactively and never silently. If the code and the document ever disagree, we treat that as a critical bug: tell us.
What we learn goes back to the community as published aggregate reports.
Self-hosting
Section titled “Self-hosting”Two extra guarantees on your own server:
- Set
TELEMETRY_DISABLED=trueand no one on the install is ever prompted and nothing is ever collected. - Even with consent, nothing leaves your host unless your deployment explicitly configures a transmission endpoint. The default is that events stay home.
Questions: privacy@thalermark.com.