ChestnutPrivacy Policy
What we collect and why. Your Chestnut history stays on your own machine. The service itself is covered by the terms of service.
CHESTNUT PRIVACY POLICY
Version 1.7
Effective 22 October 2026
YOUtility Apps Inc.
70 Melvin Robson Avenue, Unit 2
Aurora, Ontario L4G 4B8, Canada
1. THE SHORT VERSION
Chestnut reads your Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode history to make it
useful to you. That reading happens on your own computer, and we never
receive your history. Some features ask an AI coding tool you already use to
read part of it, and that tool sends what it reads to its own AI provider, as
section 3 describes.
What we do receive is the small amount needed to run an account: your email
address, whether you are on Free or Pro, and a billing record held by our
payment processor. The app sends a random install ID and basic technical
details with its update checks, so we can count how many copies are in use,
and our website counts visits without identifying you. Everything beyond
that is something you switch on yourself.
2. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE
YOUtility Apps Inc., of Aurora, Ontario, Canada, decides what personal
information is collected and why. If you have a question or a complaint
about privacy, write to us at the address in section 12 and we will answer.
YOUtility Apps Inc. has designated a Privacy Officer who is accountable for
personal information. You can reach the Privacy Officer at
support@getchestnut.ai or at the address in section 12.
3. WHAT WE COLLECT, AND WHY
Your account.
Your email address, and the sign-in credentials you set. We need these to
create your account, to let you sign in, and to contact you about your
subscription or a security matter. Sign-in is handled by Amazon Cognito.
If you sign in with Google, Google sends us an identifier for your Google
account, your email address, whether Google has verified it, your name, and
a link to your profile picture. Amazon Cognito keeps these with your
account. We use the identifier, the email address and its verified status
to create your account, or to join it to an existing account with the same
address. We never receive your Google password, and
Google learns that you signed in to Chestnut.
Your subscription.
Whether you are on Free or Pro, and the state of your subscription. We
need this to give you what you paid for. Payments and card details are
handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
Update checks.
Each time the app checks for an update, it sends basic technical details:
the app version, the macOS version, and the type of chip in your computer.
When you are signed in, we keep the details from the latest check, with
the hour it happened, on your account, and each check replaces the last.
We use them to know how many people use Chestnut and which versions they
run, so we can tell when an old version needs attention. We keep no list
of your machines on your account.
Install ID.
Each copy of the desktop app creates a random install ID. It is made up
on your computer and is not made from anything about you or your machine.
Once you have agreed to this policy in the app, it sends the install ID
with every update check, signed in or not, together with the app version,
the macOS version, and the chip type. We use them to count how many copies
of Chestnut are in use and which versions they run.
We keep one record for each install ID: the ID, the hour of its latest
update check, and those three details. The record is not linked to your
account, your email address, or your IP address, and your account does
not hold the install ID. We delete a record 35 days after that install's
last update check. The deletion usually happens within a few days after
that.
There is no setting to turn the install ID off. The only way not to send
it is not to check for updates, which means not using automatic updates
and not updating the app.
Crash reports. Off unless you turn them on.
Crash reporting ships switched off. If you turn it on in Settings, a crash
sends us the error, where in the code it happened, and the app version.
Before anything is sent, the app removes your username, your computer
name, your home directory path, and the technical record of what you were
doing beforehand. It is built so that a crash report cannot carry your
identity or your work.
Feedback you send us.
The feedback form offers two routes, and you choose which one.
Sent privately, it goes to our support desk, which is hosted by Atlassian,
where only the Chestnut team can read it. We receive what you write, and
your email address so we can reply, if your account has one.
Reported publicly, it becomes a GitHub issue that anyone can read. No logs
are ever attached to a public report.
Diagnostic logs are attached only to a private report, and only if you tick
the box. Before they are sent, the app replaces your username and your home
directory path, the same way it does for a crash report. The names and
locations of the projects you have open in Chestnut still appear. If you
have turned logging up to debug they hold considerably more, including the
content of tool calls. The app tells you this at the point you tick the
box, and shows you the redacted text it will send.
Your Chestnut history.
We do not collect it. It is read and stored on your own computer, and no
part of the application sends it to us.
Some features work by asking an AI coding tool you already use, such as
Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode, to read your conversations in full,
including the commands that ran in them and the output those commands
returned. Those features are conversation summaries and the friction
reports written with them, the Notebook digest, and the suggestions and
analysis you ask for. Chestnut runs that tool on
your computer, signed in to your own account with it, and the tool sends
what it reads to the AI provider it is set up to use: Anthropic for Claude
Code, OpenAI for Codex, or the provider you have chosen for OpenCode. That
provider handles it under its own terms with you, and none of it reaches
us. Summaries and the Notebook digest run on their own only after you agree
to that for the tool you use; the others run only when you ask.
Website visits.
Our website counts visits in aggregate, such as which pages are viewed and
where visitors came from. It also counts how many times Chestnut is
downloaded and how many times the video on our home page is started and
watched to the end, noting only which page it happened on. This does not
use cookies or identify you.
4. WHAT WE DO NOT DO
We do not sell your personal information. We do not share it with anyone for
their own marketing. We do not use it to train any model. We do not build a
profile of you, and nothing about your account is decided automatically in a
way that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you.
5. WHO ELSE PROCESSES IT
We use a small number of service providers, each handling only what it needs
to do its job. Each is bound to use it only on our instructions, except
Google, which holds your Google account under its own terms with you:
Amazon Web Services hosting, and sign-in through Amazon Cognito
Stripe payments and billing records
Sentry crash reports, only if you have turned them on
Atlassian our support desk, which receives private feedback
and any logs you attach to it
Vercel serving our website and counting its visits,
downloads and video plays
GitHub public feedback, when you choose to report publicly
Google sign-in with Google, if you choose it
The AI provider behind an AI coding tool Chestnut runs for you, such as
Anthropic or OpenAI, is not one of our service providers. You chose it and
hold your own account with it, so what your tool sends it is handled under
your terms with that provider, as section 3 describes.
These providers store and process personal information outside Canada,
principally in the United States: our own servers run in Amazon Web
Services' United States (Northern Virginia) region, and the others are
United States companies. While your information is there it is subject to
the laws of that country, and may be accessed by courts, law enforcement and
national security authorities there under those laws. Each provider other
than Google is bound by contract to protect it and to use it only to provide
its service to us.
6. HOW LONG WE KEEP IT
Your account details, including the details from your latest update check,
are kept while your account exists. If you delete your
account we delete them, except for the trial record below and where we are
required to keep something, such as billing records kept for tax purposes.
When you start a free Pro trial, we record a code made from your email
address with a secret key. The code cannot be turned back into your address.
We use it only to stop the same email address from starting a second free
trial, including after an account is deleted and created again, and we keep
it for 24 months after the trial started, then delete it. The same code is
stored with the subscription at our payment processor.
An install record is deleted 35 days after that install's last update
check, as section 3 describes. It is not part of your account, so deleting
your account does not delete it.
Crash reports are kept for ninety days and then deleted. Feedback, and any
logs you attached to it, is kept for twelve months after the report is
closed and then deleted.
7. YOUR RIGHTS
You may ask us to show you the personal information we hold about you, to
correct it if it is wrong, or to delete it. You may withdraw a consent you
have given, such as turning crash reporting back off, at any time. You may
ask us to send you your information in a portable form.
Write to us and we will answer within thirty days. We will not charge you or
treat you differently for asking.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Office of
the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or to the Commission d'acces a
l'information du Quebec if you live in Quebec.
8. CHILDREN
Chestnut is a tool for professional and hobbyist software development and is
not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information
from anyone under the age of majority where they live. If you believe we
have, tell us and we will delete it.
9. KEEPING IT SECURE
Sign-in credentials are held by Amazon Cognito and are not stored by us in a
readable form. Traffic between the application, our website, and our servers
is encrypted in transit. Access to production systems is limited to those
who need it.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach occurs that creates a real risk
of significant harm to you, we will tell you and the Privacy Commissioner as
the law requires, and we will keep a record of the breach either way.
10. COOKIES
Our website uses the cookies needed to keep you signed in and to keep your
session secure, and one more: a small cookie that records whether your
account is Free or Pro, so the site can show a Pro badge without asking the
server on every page. It carries nothing else, it is readable by the page
itself rather than only by our servers, and it decides nothing about what
you can access.
We do not use advertising or analytics cookies.
11. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
We may update this policy. The version and effective date at the top say
which version you are reading. If a change materially affects how we handle
your information, we will tell you before it takes effect rather than
quietly replacing the page.
12. HOW TO REACH US
YOUtility Apps Inc.
70 Melvin Robson Avenue, Unit 2
Aurora, Ontario L4G 4B8, Canada
support@getchestnut.ai
This policy is governed by the Personal Information Protection and
Electronic Documents Act of Canada, and by Quebec's Act respecting the
protection of personal information in the private sector where it applies to
you.