Terms of Service

Your agreement with Chronicle

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your download, access, and use of Chronicle, including the desktop application, website, and optional online services (together, the "Service"). By using the Service, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

You must be legally able to enter into this agreement and meet the minimum digital-consent age that applies where you live. If you use Chronicle for an organization, you confirm that you can accept these Terms for that organization.

What Chronicle provides

Chronicle is a local-first tool that watches folders you select, captures changed versions of supported creative files, stores a local history, and helps you search and restore that history. Optional AI features can describe changes and create semantic-search embeddings. Core local features do not require an account or Chronicle's online service. Google Sign-In enables account-backed features such as portable settings. Encrypted provider-key sync is separate and requires you to enable it and save an encrypted copy. Chronicle does not provide cloud storage for your creative version library.

The current release can register a random installation identifier when its configured service is reachable, including in local mode. Its usage-reporting preference starts enabled, but transmission of usage events and the related admin analytics view are not implemented in the current release. The Privacy Policy explains these boundaries and will be updated before those capabilities materially change.

Chronicle is under active development. Supported formats, compatibility, limits, and features may change. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue all or part of the Service, and we will provide reasonable notice when a material change adversely affects users where practical.

Accounts and Google Sign-In

An account is optional. If you create one with Google Sign-In, you authorize Chronicle to use the basic identity information described on the consent screen and in our Privacy Policy to authenticate you. You are responsible for maintaining control of your Google account, your device, and any Chronicle session. Notify us promptly if you believe your account or session has been compromised.

You may not impersonate another person, misrepresent your affiliation, transfer access in a way that undermines security, or attempt to bypass authentication or account controls. We may suspend or deactivate access when reasonably necessary to protect the Service, comply with law, or address a material breach of these Terms.

Portable settings sync can be disabled in Settings. The current control starts enabled but cannot sync anything until you choose to sign in. Provider keys stay encrypted on your device by default. If you separately enable key sync, Chronicle stores only the passphrase-encrypted envelope created on your device, not your passphrase, plaintext provider keys, or decryption key.

Your files remain your files

You retain all rights in the files and other content you process with Chronicle. These Terms do not give Chronicle ownership of your creative work. You give Chronicle only the limited permission needed to read, copy, index, restore, and otherwise process content on your device at your direction, and to send specific inputs to an AI provider when you enable and use an AI feature.

You are responsible for having the rights and permissions needed to process your content. Chronicle is a version-history aid, not your only backup. You should maintain independent backups of important work and check restored files before relying on them.

AI features and provider services

AI summaries, tags, and search results are generated automatically and may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading. Review AI output before relying on it, especially for professional, legal, safety-critical, or irreversible decisions. Chronicle does not guarantee that AI output will identify every visual change.

When you connect your own AI provider, you are also subject to that provider's terms, privacy policy, pricing, quotas, and content rules. You are responsible for provider charges and for ensuring your use is permitted. Chronicle is not responsible for a third-party provider's availability, output, retention, or handling of data sent at your direction.

AI work may queue while you are offline and be processed when the selected provider becomes reachable. You can continue capturing and browsing local versions without enabling AI.

Software and open-source components

Chronicle's source code is made available through its public repository. Your right to copy, modify, or distribute source code is governed by the license files included with that code. Third-party and open-source components may have separate terms. These Terms govern your use of the hosted website, account services, and any aspects not covered by an applicable software license.

Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service to:

• break the law or infringe another person's privacy, intellectual-property, or other rights;
• upload, process, or transmit content you do not have the right to use;
• introduce malware, abuse infrastructure, interfere with other users, or evade rate or security limits;
• probe, attack, reverse engineer, or access non-public systems except where law or an open-source license permits it;
• use automated means that materially burden the Service; or
• use AI features to create or facilitate unlawful or harmful activity.

Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available." We disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and uninterrupted or error-free operation. We do not warrant that Chronicle will capture every save, preserve every file, work with every editor, or produce accurate AI output. Nothing in these Terms excludes warranties that cannot legally be excluded.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Chronicle project team and contributors will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for loss of content, data, profits, goodwill, or business opportunity arising from the Service. Our total liability for claims relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us for the Service during the 12 months before the claim or USD $100. These limits do not apply where prohibited by law.

Ending use of Chronicle

You may stop using Chronicle at any time. Uninstalling the app or signing out does not necessarily remove local app data, synced settings, or your Chronicle account. You can delete an encrypted key-sync copy from Settings. A self-service account-deletion button is not implemented in the current release, so contact us to request deletion of the account and its associated server-side data. Account deletion does not delete local version history unless you separately remove it on your device. We may suspend or end online access for a serious or repeated breach, security risk, legal requirement, or discontinuation of the Service. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination, including ownership, disclaimers, and liability limits, will survive.

Changes and general terms

We may update these Terms as Chronicle changes. We will post the revised Terms, update the effective date, and provide additional notice for material changes where required. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them as part of a reorganization or transfer of the project.

Mandatory consumer protections and the courts available to you under applicable law are not limited by these Terms. Any dispute should first be raised with us so the parties can try to resolve it informally.

Contact

Chronicle is maintained by the Chronicle project team. Questions about these Terms can be sent to chronicle.support@gmial.com or submitted through the Chronicle project issue tracker. Do not publish passwords, provider keys, tokens, file contents, or other sensitive information in an issue.