Denote Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 24, 2026
Denote is a desktop design tool made by Made For Humans, LLC ("we", "us"). This policy explains what data the Denote app and the denote.cool website collect, what we receive, what we never do, and how to opt out.
The short version: Denote has no accounts, never uploads your design files, and collects only anonymous usage and crash data. We never sell your data.
The Denote app
What we never collect
- The contents of your design files: your vision, entities, screens, governance, and everything else in a project. Your work never reaches us.
- Your terminal activity. Denote never reads, stores, or transmits what you type into, or see in, the embedded terminal — with one exception: when you submit a line that runs a Denote skill (like
/visionor/spec), the app records the skill's name, and nothing else from that line. - File paths and project locations. Projects live wherever you put them.
One important distinction: when you work in the embedded terminal, your conversation and design files do travel to Anthropic under your own Claude account — that's the product working as designed, and it's covered under "Network activity" below. They just never come to us.
The only files Denote creates for itself are an anonymous ID, a record of the last version you ran, and your recent-projects list. All of these stay on your computer.
Anonymous usage data
On first run, Denote generates a random ID and stores it locally. This ID is not connected to your name, email, or any account, because Denote has none. Every usage event carries this ID so we can tell how many people use a feature, not who they are.
Usage events record which actions you take in the app — for example, launching the app, creating or opening a project, switching layers, running a skill, generating a spec, or hitting an error. Each event includes the app version, your operating system, a timestamp, a session ID that resets after 30 minutes of inactivity, and a small number of event-specific details such as which skill ran or which error code appeared. Events never include the content of your work.
This data goes to two places:
- Countsalot, our own analytics service, hosted in the United States.
- PostHog (US Cloud), a third-party analytics provider, hosted in the United States.
Crash and error reports
If Denote crashes or hits an error, it sends a report to Sentry, a third-party error-tracking provider hosted in the United States. Reports include the stack trace, app version, operating system details, and the same anonymous ID. They do not include the contents of your design files.
Opting out
You can turn off usage and crash reporting at any time in the app's settings ("Share anonymous usage data"). Denote works exactly the same either way. Your anonymous ID is shown in the same place; if you'd also like the data already collected under it deleted, email the ID to hello@madeforhumans.com and we'll take care of it.
Network activity that isn't data collection
Two things in Denote talk to other companies' servers on your behalf. We don't receive data from either.
- Update checks. On launch and roughly every 24 hours, Denote checks GitHub for a newer version. GitHub sees your IP address and standard request metadata under GitHub's privacy policy.
- The embedded Claude Code terminal. Denote's core workflow runs Claude Code inside the app. When you work in that terminal, your conversation and the design files you're working on are sent to Anthropic under your own Claude account and Anthropic's terms and privacy policy. Denote does not read, store, or transmit anything from that terminal. What you share with Anthropic is between you and Anthropic.
The denote.cool website
- Analytics. The site uses our Countsalot snippet to record page views and clicks on the download links, including the page path, referrer, and any campaign (UTM) parameters in the link you clicked. It stores an anonymous ID in your browser's local storage and a session marker in session storage. It sets no cookies and does not collect your user agent or device information.
- Fonts. The site serves its own fonts and does not load resources from Google.
- Downloads are hosted on GitHub Releases and are subject to GitHub's privacy policy.
When you email us
If you write to hello@madeforhumans.com, we keep the correspondence, including your email address, so we have a record if you reach out again. This is the only way we ever receive information that identifies you.
Third parties we use
| Service | What it handles | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Countsalot (ours) | Anonymous app and website usage | United States |
| PostHog | Anonymous app usage | United States |
| Sentry | Crash and error reports | United States |
| GitHub | Update checks, downloads | United States |
| Anthropic | Your Claude Code sessions, under your own account | United States |
We do not run ads, use ad networks, or share data with anyone else.
Your rights
Because the data we hold is anonymous, we usually cannot connect it to you. If you send us your anonymous ID (shown in the app's settings), we will delete everything associated with it. If you've emailed us, you can ask us to delete that correspondence. Write to hello@madeforhumans.com for either.
Location of data
Made For Humans, LLC is a US company and all of the services above store data in the United States. If you use Denote from outside the US, your anonymous usage data is transferred to and processed in the US.
Changes and questions
We may update this policy as Denote changes. When we do, we'll update the date at the top of this page and note the change in the app's release notes. Questions: hello@madeforhumans.com.
Adapted from the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0.