Your work should not become someone else’s data business.

1. Scope and who is responsible

This policy applies to the Build Mode macOS app, the Build Mode website, the launch waitlist, and any optional publishing service offered for the app. “Build Mode,” “we,” and “us” refer to the creator and operator of Build Mode.

This policy does not cover a third-party website or service you choose to visit. Those services apply their own terms and privacy practices.

2. Data handled on your Mac

Sessions and practice records

Build Mode stores the information needed to show your progress: session identifiers, the skill you selected, start and end times, active seconds, optional notes, manual log entries, skill names and colors, settings, recovery decisions, and queued publishing status.

Active-time signals

The app uses local macOS signals such as recent keyboard or pointer activity and display sleep to decide whether a running session is active. It does not record keystrokes, pointer content, or what appears on your screen.

Optional Auto Mode

If you enable Auto Mode, macOS provides the name and bundle identifier of the frontmost application. Build Mode uses those values locally to match known app families or rules to your active skills. It does not collect window titles, document names, browser tabs, page URLs, or screen contents. Browsers are intentionally unassigned by default. You can correct or forget rules, and old observed-app entries are pruned after 90 days.

What the Mac app does not access

Build Mode does not request Accessibility, Input Monitoring, Screen Recording, camera, microphone, contacts, location, or photo-library permission. It includes no advertising, tracking, third-party analytics, or third-party crash-reporting SDK.

3. Optional publishing

Nothing is published merely because you install or use Build Mode. Publishing becomes available only after you enter a valid service address, link your Mac, and turn publishing on.

For a completed tracked session, the app may send: a session UUID, skill, start and end timestamps, active seconds, and an optional note of up to 500 characters. While a session is active, a minimal heartbeat may send the skill and start time so your page can show current status.

Manual Quick Logs, Auto Mode app names, bundle identifiers, learned app rules, recovery files, and app diagnostics are not published.

The publishing credential is stored in the macOS Keychain and bound to the exact service origin. Publishing uses HTTPS except for an explicit localhost development address, rejects cross-origin redirects, and uses an ephemeral network session without persistent cookies or a disk cache.

4. Website and waitlist

When you join the waitlist, we store your normalized email address, where on the site the form was submitted, and the signup time. We use this information to manage early access and send Build Mode launch or product communications. The application database does not store your IP address or user-agent string.

The website uses DataFast analytics to measure visits, page activity, traffic sources, and the performance of launch campaigns. The default DataFast script may process IP address, browser and device information, user-agent string, country, cookies or similar identifiers, and page activity. DataFast processes this information to provide analytics to Build Mode; we do not use it to build an advertising profile or sell it to data brokers.

Our hosting, analytics, and database providers process network requests to deliver and measure the site and may keep limited technical logs under their own security and retention practices. The waitlist currently uses Turso to store signup records, and DataFast provides website analytics.

You can ask to be removed from the waitlist or unsubscribe from marketing messages at any time. Joining the waitlist is not a purchase and does not create an obligation to buy.

The early-builder benefits describe a planned Builder Page and private builders community. Joining the current waitlist does not create a public profile or community account. Before either feature collects profile details, posts, replies, or other community content, this policy will be updated and the feature will explain its visibility and controls.

5. Purchases, if offered

The current waitlist does not collect payment or payment-card details. If we later offer a paid license, its checkout and privacy disclosures will explain the payment processor, purchase terms, and information required to provide the license and support.

6. How information is used and shared

We use information only to operate the product and website, provide features you request, maintain security, respond to support or privacy requests, communicate about launch, and meet legal obligations.

We do not sell personal information, rent waitlist addresses, serve targeted ads, or share information with data brokers. Limited information may be processed by service providers that host the website, provide analytics, store the waitlist, deliver email, process an optional future payment, or help protect the service. They may use it only to provide those services or meet their own legal obligations.

We may disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect a person’s safety, investigate abuse, or defend the rights and integrity of Build Mode. If the product is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or asset sale, information may transfer with the product subject to this policy and applicable law.

7. Security

Local application data is stored in Build Mode’s Application Support directory. The app sets restrictive permissions on that directory and its files. Publishing credentials use the macOS Keychain. Network publishing uses the origin and transport protections described above. The website keeps database credentials on the server, validates and normalizes waitlist submissions, uses parameterized database operations, limits request size, and applies duplicate and bot protections.

No system is perfectly secure. Keep your Mac, email account, and operating system protected, and contact us if you believe your information or publishing credential has been compromised.

8. Retention, export, and deletion

Local records remain on your Mac until you delete them or use Erase Everything. That control removes local sessions, recovery state, queues, skills, Auto Mode rules and observed app names, preferences, diagnostics, and the publishing credential, then checks that the local data is gone. You can also export your local session records.

Erase Everything cannot delete information already sent to a separately operated publishing service. Published data must be deleted through that service or by making a deletion request.

Waitlist records are kept while they are needed to manage the launch and related communications, until you unsubscribe or request deletion, or until we determine they are no longer needed. Website analytics are retained according to the DataFast service plan and may be deleted by request. Service-provider logs may be retained for shorter operational and security periods. We may retain minimal records when required for legal, fraud-prevention, tax, dispute, or security purposes.

9. Your choices and privacy rights

You control whether to enable Auto Mode, whether to add a note, whether to publish, and whether to join the waitlist. You can stop a session, edit your skills, forget Auto Mode rules, export local data, disable publishing, erase local data, unsubscribe from launch communications, and block or delete website cookies through your browser settings.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to ask what personal data we hold, receive a copy, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to certain processing, withdraw consent, or receive portable data. You may also have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority. We will verify and respond to requests as required by applicable law and will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.

10. Children

Build Mode and its waitlist are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13. If you believe a child has submitted information, contact us so we can delete it.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Build Mode changes. We will change the “Last updated” date and provide additional notice when a change materially affects how personal information is handled. We will not silently turn a local-only feature into a data collection practice.

12. Contact

For a privacy request or question, use the official support contact included with your Build Mode invitation, distribution page, or app. If you received a Build Mode email, you can reply to it and state “Privacy request” in the subject or first line. Include the email address involved and the request you want us to complete; do not send passwords, payment-card details, or sensitive session notes.