Privacy Policy

August HQ is built by August (“August”, “we”, “us”). This policy covers the August HQ desktop app and this website. Questions or requests: [email protected].

August HQ stores your workspace — rooms, messages, agents, tasks, memory, run history, and cost records — in a local SQLite database on your machine. It is yours: you can open it, back it up, or delete it at any time. We have no server-side copy of it and no way to read it.

API keys and subscription credentials you add are stored on your machine only. They are used to call the providers you configured and are never transmitted to August.

The app writes a local diagnostic log (timings, success/failure of operations) to help debug problems. Prompts, model output, file paths, and credentials never enter that log, and it never leaves your machine unless you send it to us yourself.

When your agents work, the app talks directly to the model providers and agent harnesses you configured — for example Anthropic via Claude Code, or OpenAI via Codex — using your own accounts. Those requests carry your prompts and relevant context, go straight from your Mac to that provider, and are governed by that provider’s privacy terms, not ours. We are not in that path and never see the traffic.

When public builds ship, the app will periodically check our release server for updates. That request carries the app version — not your content.

If you join the waitlist we store your email address with Customer.io, our email delivery provider, and use it for one purpose: telling you about August HQ access and launch. Every email we send has an unsubscribe link. No email, no data collection.

If you arrive through a shared invite link or a campaign link, your browser keeps the referral code and campaign tags from that link in local storage. They’re attached to your signup — so the person who invited you gets credit — and sent nowhere until you submit the form.

This site sets no cookies and runs no analytics.

Paid plans will be handled by Stripe (payments) and Clerk (sign-in). Your card number goes to Stripe, never to us — we receive only what’s needed to know your plan is active (name, email, subscription status).

The complete list of third parties we use:

• Customer.io — waitlist and product emails.
• Stripe — payment processing (paid plans, when live).
• Clerk — account sign-in (paid plans, when live).

Each processes data only on our instructions. We never sell or rent personal data to anyone.

Waitlist emails are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. App data is on your machine — deleting the app’s data folder deletes it, completely and immediately, because there is no copy anywhere else.

To access, correct, or delete anything we hold about you (which is, at most, your email), write to [email protected]. We answer within 30 days.

Traffic between you and this site, and between the app and any server, is encrypted in transit (TLS). App data at rest is protected by your macOS user account — the same protection as your documents. Because your workspace never reaches our servers, the most common class of breach — someone stealing a vendor’s user database — has nothing of yours to steal.

Running August HQ inside a company? The local-first design means your code, conversations, and keys stay on your employees’ machines, subject to your own device policies. We’re happy to answer security questionnaires and discuss data processing agreements — [email protected].

If this policy changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. If a change is material and you’re on the waitlist, we’ll tell you by email.