Privacy

Kerouac is a small, independent writing app run by one person, Jonny Spicer. Your writing is yours. This page explains what Kerouac stores, why, and what you can do about it.

What Kerouac stores

• Your email address, so you can sign in.
• Everything you write: drafts, daily entries, titles, and word counts per day (which power your daily goal and streak).
• Your settings: daily goal, timezone and the hour your writing day starts.
• Sign-in sessions: when each started and was last used, and the browser’s description of itself (its “user agent”), so you can sign out of other devices.
• Short-lived security records: hashed sign-in codes and links (deleted after use or expiry) and counts of sign-in emails per address and IP address, used to prevent abuse and kept for no more than two days.
• Apps you connect (see below): each app’s name, when you connected it and last used it, and hashed access tokens, which expire or are deleted when you disconnect.

There is no advertising, no analytics, and no tracking. Kerouac sets one cookie, which keeps you signed in. Your theme preference is stored only in your browser.

Who else handles your data

• Kerouac runs on a server rented from Hetzner Online GmbH in [the EU — confirm the data-centre location].
• Sign-in emails are sent by Resend, which receives your email address and the content of those emails.

Kerouac never sells your writing, uses it to train AI models, or shares it with anyone unless you connect an app yourself.

Connecting an AI app

You can choose to connect an AI app, such as Claude, to your account. Kerouac asks you to approve each connection. Once you approve, that app can read all of your drafts, daily entries and stats. It can’t change, add or delete anything.

What you let the app read is sent to the company that runs it (for Claude, Anthropic). What that company does with it, including whether it is used for training, is governed by your own agreement and settings with them, not by Kerouac. Nothing is shared unless you connect an app, and you can disconnect it at any time from your account page. Disconnecting stops access immediately but can’t recall what the app has already read.

Your rights

• Export: download everything you’ve written, any time, from your account page.
• Delete: delete your account from the same page. Your account and writing are removed from the live database immediately. Backups are kept for [N days] and then deleted.
• Correct: change your email address or settings on the account page.

If you’re in the UK or EU you have rights under data-protection law, including to access and delete your data and to complain to your data-protection authority (in the UK, the ICO). For anything else, contact [contact email].

Changes

If this notice changes in a way that matters, the date at the top will change, and significant changes will be announced to account holders by email.