Privacy policy

This policy explains what Crate Systems (“Crate Systems”, “we”, “us”) does with personal data in connection with Cory (the “Software”) and this website, www.trycrate.net (the “Site”). It applies to visitors to the Site and to people who install and run the Software.

1. Who is responsible for your data

For the Site, Crate Systems is the controller of the personal data described in section 3.

For the Software the position is different. Cory executes entirely on hardware you own and control. You decide what it may read, who may address it, and which third-party accounts it connects to. In data-protection terms you are the controller of the content Cory processes on your Mac, and Crate Systems is not a processor of your iMessage content, because it never reaches us. We are a processor of WhatsApp message content, which passes through our relay in transit and is deleted once answered. The other exception is chats typed in the desktop window while signed in: we are a processor of those, we store them so they survive a reinstall, and deleting a chat deletes it here too. You can switch that off in Settings.

Crate Systems operates from California, United States. Write to hello@trycrate.net for anything in this policy: a question, a correction, or a request to exercise one of the rights in section 11. That address is monitored and we answer within one month.

2. What the Software processes, and where

When you address Cory in a conversation, the Software may read and act on the following on your Mac:

• Message content and history. The message that mentions Cory, the surrounding conversation for context, and, when you ask it to search, other conversations stored in the Messages database on that Mac. On WhatsApp, the message and the conversation history are held on your Mac in the same way; only the single message in transit passes through our relay.
• Participant identifiers. The phone numbers, email addresses and display names that macOS already associates with the conversation, used to work out who is speaking and what they are permitted to ask for.
• Files and command output. Files you ask it to read, write, generate or send, and the output of commands you ask it to run.
• Connected third-party accounts. Data from services you explicitly connect, such as a Notion workspace or a Google Calendar. See sections 5, 6 and 8: requests to these services pass through a relay on our servers and through a processor, in transit.

With that exception, none of this is transmitted to Crate Systems. It is held in the operating system and in Cory’s local working files on your machine, subject to your own backups, disk encryption and device security.

3. What this website collects

The Site sets no advertising or analytics cookies and does not embed third-party trackers. There is no cookie banner because there is nothing to consent to.

4. AI processing

Some of what you ask is answered by a model running on your own Mac, and never leaves it. Anything harder is sent out to be answered: Cory passes the relevant part of your request, and only the context needed for it, to the model provider we contract with for that purpose. Your plan covers it; you do not hold an account with them and you never see their name in the product.

That provider processes the content in order to return a response, under a commercial agreement that prohibits using it to train models. We will name our current sub-processors on request at hello@trycrate.net, and will publish a list here if the number of them grows. The full detail of what is sent, when, and what is not done with it is set out in our AI usage policy.

5. Third-party services you connect

Cory only reaches a third-party service after you connect it, and only with the permissions you grant:

• Work and developer tools. GitHub, Vercel, Notion, Linear, Sentry, Jira and Confluence, Asana, Canva, Figma, Airtable and Slack: Cory can read from these and make changes in them when you ask it to.
• Money. Stripe, Square and PayPal: Cory can read payments and invoices, and can create invoices and customers when you ask it to. Cory is instructed to show you a change like that before making it; that instruction is part of how it is prompted, not a technical lock, so connect a money service only if you are comfortable with that.
• Google. Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive, on the terms in section 6.
• More apps. Google Sheets and Docs, Outlook, Dropbox, HubSpot, Shopify, QuickBooks, Trello, Todoist, Discord, Zoom and Calendly, connected in conversation when you ask.

The sign-in credential for a connected app is held by Composio, our processor for connected apps (section 8), not on your Mac; PayPal is the exception and its token stays on your Mac. Switching an app off in Cory revokes the credential at Composio, and tells you if it could not reach our servers to do so. You can also revoke it at any time in the provider’s own account settings, which ends Cory’s access immediately.

6. Google user data

Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive can be connected in Cory. The sign-in and every request go through Composio, as section 8 describes. Where you connect a Google account, Cory’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

What we request and why

• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.events: to read your events so Cory can answer questions about your schedule, and to add one when you ask it to, and to change or remove one when you ask it to. The exact permissions are those of Composio’s managed Google sign-in, shown to you on the Google consent screen when you connect.
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly: where you want Cory to answer questions about your schedule and never write to it at all.
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify and gmail.send: to search and read the mail you ask about, and to send a message you asked Cory to send.
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly: to search Drive and read a file you have named.

Those are the scopes the Google path will request, and you grant them one service at a time rather than all at once. If a later feature needs a scope that is not on this list, you will be asked to grant it, and this page will name it before that happens.

Where Google user data is stored

Event data is fetched at the moment you ask a question, held in memory on your Mac for the length of that request, and sent to the model provider only insofar as it is needed to answer you. It is never written to Crate Systems infrastructure, unless you ask about it in the desktop chat window with chat sync on, in which case the answer is stored with that chat. Anything cached is cached on your own machine and is removed when you delete the Software. Requests to Google and their replies pass through our connected-apps relay and through Composio in transit; our relay stores none of it, and section 8 says what Composio keeps. The OAuth credential is held by Composio and revoked when you switch the app off.

Limited Use commitments

• Google user data is used only to provide or improve the specific features you invoked. It is not used for any other purpose.
• Google user data is never transferred to others except as necessary to provide those features, to comply with applicable law, or as part of a merger or acquisition with your prior notice.
• Google user data is never used for advertising, ad targeting, personalization or resale.
• Google user data is not used to develop, improve or train generalized artificial intelligence or machine-learning models. Where it is sent to an AI provider, it is sent solely to fulfill the request you made, under terms that prohibit training on it.
• No human at Crate Systems reads your Google user data. It passes through our connected-apps relay in transit and is not stored there; we keep no copy and have no interface for reading it. The recipients outside your Mac are Composio, which executes the request against Google (section 8 says what it retains), and the model provider, which processes it to answer the request you made and is contractually barred from training on it. The only exceptions permitted under the policy would be with your explicit consent, for security purposes, or where required by law.

You can withdraw Cory’s access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Deleting the Software does not by itself revoke a connected Google account; switch the app off in Cory first, or revoke it at the link above.

7. Who can address Cory, and what they can reach

This is a privacy question as much as a feature. The owner of the Mac decides who may address Cory. There are two levels:

• The owner can ask Cory to run commands and read or write files on that Mac.
• Everyone else in a conversation gets a restricted version. They can ask questions and search within the conversation they are already in. They cannot touch the machine, its files or its shell, and they cannot reach any service you have connected.

Anyone in a group conversation can see that Cory replied, and can see the reply. If you would not say something in front of the group, do not ask Cory for it there.

8. Sharing

We do not sell personal data, and we have never sold or shared it for cross-context behavioral advertising. For the Site we use a small number of processors: a hosting provider to serve these pages and run our API, a managed Postgres database holding accounts, chats and usage metadata, an identity and billing provider to sign you in and take payment, and a transactional email provider to deliver the mail you asked for. They act on our instructions and are bound by contract.

Connected apps go through Composio. When you connect an app in Cory (GitHub, Notion, Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar and the rest, with the exception of PayPal, which connects directly), the sign-in is handled by Composio, Inc., and every request Cory makes to that app, and every reply, passes first through a relay on our own servers and then through Composio’s on its way. Our relay checks that the request comes from your signed-in Mac and forwards it; it stores nothing of the request or the reply. Composio holds the sign-in credential for that app, so your Mac does not need to. Composio sees the content of those requests and replies in transit. Composio’s default is to keep that content in its execution logs for up to a year; on our account that is switched off, so what Composio keeps is a record that a request happened: which app, which action, when, and whether it succeeded. Our relay keeps, for each Mac signed in to your account, which apps it has switched on, and an identifier for your Composio session. Switching an app off in Cory revokes the credential at Composio, including for the apps reached through “More apps”; if your Mac cannot reach our servers at that moment it tells you, and you can revoke it in the app’s own account settings. Composio is bound by its own terms and privacy policy and acts as our processor for this purpose. Apple Calendar, Reminders, Shortcuts and everything on your Mac itself never go through Composio or our relay.

9. International transfers

Our hosting and email providers operate globally and may process Site data in the United States and the European Union. Where personal data is transferred out of the UK or EEA we rely on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses.

10. Security

The Site is served over TLS. Form submissions are transmitted encrypted and are not stored in a public database.

The security of what Cory processes is, in large part, the security of your Mac. Because the Software can run commands and read files on that machine, we recommend FileVault, a screen lock, an account password that is not shared, and care over who is in the conversations Cory can see. Full Disk Access is a significant permission: grant it knowingly.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you live you may have the right to access, correct, delete, port, or restrict processing of your personal data, to object to processing based on legitimate interests, and to withdraw consent at any time. Residents of California have the rights to know, delete, correct and opt out of sale or sharing under the CCPA as amended by the CPRA; we do not sell or share personal information and never have, so there is nothing to opt out of. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any right. Because we operate exclusively online and deal with you directly, email is the designated method for submitting a request.

For anything we hold, write to hello@trycrate.net and we will respond within one month. For data held on your own Mac, you already have it: delete the Software and its working directory and it is gone. Chats synced to your account are the exception, and go when you delete the chat or close the account. If you are in the UK or EEA you may also complain to your supervisory authority.

12. Children

Cory and this Site are not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data. If you believe a child has given us data, write to us and we will delete it.

13. Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of the page. Where a change materially affects how personal data is handled, and we hold your email address, we will tell you before it takes effect.