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Privacy policy

In effect from .

Short Leash is made by Frank The Programmer LLC ("we", "us"). The Short Leash app doesn't collect your data. There's no account, no analytics and no tracking in the app. If you buy Short Leash Pro, Polar handles the payment, and the app checks your license with Polar about once a day; both are described below. This website counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, without cookies.

What stays on your computer

Everything Short Leash works with is stored on your computer and never sent to us:

  • Your sites, settings and parked folders
  • Recorded requests, caught mail, dumps and logs
  • The Monitor's history, with secrets masked before it's saved, kept 7 days or up to 1 GB, whichever comes first
  • Terminal output
  • Scratchpads and their runs
  • Calls and their environments
  • Tasks, each with its activity: who added and claimed it, notes from you and from coding agents, steps ticked, reviews and status changes. A task and its activity are kept until you delete the task, with at most 200 activity entries a task. Done tasks are archived after 30 days unless you change it, and kept until you delete them. A deleted task is kept 10 seconds so you can undo it, then removed for good. Tasks don't go online on their own
  • Notes, with their tags and links, until you delete them
  • Pictures you paste into notes, kept as you pasted them, metadata included, in Short Leash's folder. A picture no note shows any more is removed 7 days later. Pictures never leave your computer: chat and coding assistants see only their names
  • Webhook deliveries, kept 14 days unless you change it (held ones until you release them)
  • Database contents for the services you run, and their backups
  • Chats, kept 90 days, with what chat read into them (a pull request included)
  • Review comments on a site's changes, yours and the ones Short Leash's model leaves: open ones until you resolve them or remove the site (or 90 days after the newest one, once the site's folder is gone), resolved ones 30 days unless you change it
  • Meeting transcripts, kept 30 days, and their summaries, kept a year, unless you choose to keep either longer or until you delete it
  • Dictation: your last 10 dictations, in memory only, gone when Short Leash quits
  • The folders you trusted and a fingerprint of what each one's leash.toml runs, kept until you stop trusting it or the folder is gone
  • Branch workspaces: a folder beside the site's with copies of the files Git ignores and, if you choose, a copy of its database, until you remove the branch workspace (the backup taken before its database is dropped is kept like other backups)

No audio is ever saved, from dictation or meeting notes. Speech and language models run on your computer.

Import from Herd, Valet or Flock reads that tool's list of sites, parked folders, HTTPS and PHP versions, and a project's herd.yml or .flockrc, from outside Short Leash's folder, only when you start it. It never opens their databases, keys or .env files, and keeps only what you choose: folders, sites, their HTTPS and PHP versions, and a leash.toml in a project when you tick it. To bring a database across, Short Leash shows the command that dumps it; you run it yourself. The dump file you then choose is copied into Short Leash's backups, readable only by your user account, and kept and deleted like the other backups.

Secrets live in files in Short Leash's folder that only your user account can read, never in its settings: your Short Leash Pro license key, your Cloudflare token, the share password, webhook signing secrets, the key for using Short Leash's model from other apps, Pair's relay key and the secret values in your calls' environments.

You can change how long things are kept, and delete any of it, from the app at any time.

When Short Leash connects to the internet

Short Leash only goes online for these reasons. Each service it reaches sees your IP address and handles it under its own privacy policy.

  • Checking for updates. Short Leash downloads a fixed file, downloads.shortleash.dev/updates/latest.json, a minute after it opens and about once a day (an hour later when a check fails), while Check for updates automatically is on, and whenever you choose Check for updates. The request doesn't include your Short Leash version or your operating system.
  • Checking your Short Leash Pro license. Once you enter a license key, Short Leash sends Polar (api.polar.sh) the key, a name for this computer (its own name unless you change it) and a SHA-256 hash of the computer's ID, never the ID itself: when you choose Activate, a minute after Short Leash starts, about once a day after that (an hour later when a check fails), when you choose Check again, and when you choose Deactivate this computer. Polar answers whether the license is active. The trial checks nothing and sends nothing.
  • Checking runtimes for updates. A few minutes after Short Leash starts, then once a day, it looks for newer patch releases of the runtimes you've installed, and only those: PHP at static-php.dev (windows.php.net on Windows), Node at nodejs.org, Go at go.dev, and Short Leash's own PHP and Ruby builds (on Windows, its PHP extensions) at downloads.shortleash.dev.
  • Downloading runtimes, services and models. Short Leash's own builds (PHP with more extensions, PHP extensions for Windows, Ruby, pgvector, PostGIS, Memcached and, on a Mac, MariaDB) and AI models come from downloads.shortleash.dev, each checked against a manifest signed with Short Leash's release key. PostGIS is downloaded only when you add it to a PostgreSQL service, and it never goes online itself: Short Leash runs PostgreSQL with PROJ's network access off (PROJ_NETWORK=OFF), so PROJ never downloads transformation grids, and Short Leash's PostGIS builds have no raster (GDAL) support. Everything else comes from its project's own source, checked against the checksum the project publishes where it publishes one: for example Node from nodejs.org, Go from go.dev, MySQL from cdn.mysql.com, MariaDB on Windows from archive.mariadb.org and Composer from getcomposer.org. PHP previews on Windows come from windows.php.net's test builds. MongoDB and its Database Tools come from fastdl.mongodb.org, with the tools' checksums from downloads.mongodb.org. Each service is downloaded only the first time you turn it on, which adding it does; that goes for MariaDB, MongoDB and its Database Tools, Redis, Valkey and Typesense too. MongoDB 7.0 and 8.0 make no connections of their own: MongoDB removed free monitoring in 7.0, and Short Leash turns off the server's diagnostic data, which it would otherwise only write to files on your computer. Tools released on GitHub (such as cloudflared, Mailpit, Bun, Deno and FrankenPHP) come from github.com, and Short Leash asks GitHub's API (api.github.com) for their latest version and each file's checksum. On a Mac only, Xdebug is built on your computer from PHP's source (php.net) and Xdebug's (xdebug.org), and Redis and Valkey from their source (download.redis.io and github.com), each checked against its project's list of release hashes on raw.githubusercontent.com. Typesense, also on a Mac only, comes from dl.typesense.org, checked against a checksum Short Leash carries, because Typesense publishes none there.
  • Sharing sites and receiving webhooks. Requests to a shared address, webhooks included, pass through Cloudflare, and people visiting it see whatever your site serves. Stop sharing to end it. To check that a shared address (or a webhook's, or a Pair invite's) is ready, Short Leash asks Cloudflare's public resolver (1.1.1.1) which nameservers hold its domain, then asks those nameservers for the address directly. Add my IP asks Cloudflare for your public IP address.
  • Your own domain. If you add a Cloudflare API token, Short Leash sends it only to Cloudflare's API, to create the tunnel and DNS records.
  • Pair.
    • Each side asks Cloudflare's STUN server (stun.cloudflare.com) for its public address.
    • An invite is a Cloudflare quick tunnel address (trycloudflare.com) that leads to Short Leash on your computer. The secret after # in the link never reaches a server.
    • The messages that set up a call pass through Cloudflare. Send invites only to people you know, and check who you let in.
    • A guest who joins in a browser loads the call page, its script and its fonts from Short Leash on your computer, through the same tunnel.
    • Audio, video, screens and a guest's input go directly between the people in the call, encrypted. People in a call can see your IP address.
    • If you add a relay key (Relay for pairing in Settings › Sharing), Short Leash sends it to Cloudflare's TURN API (rtc.live.cloudflare.com) for short-lived credentials, and Cloudflare's TURN service carries a call that can't connect directly. Relay every call in Settings › Pair sends every call through it, so the people you pair with never see your IP address.
    • Hide my local network address in Settings › Pair keeps your computer's address on your own network out of calls.
  • Calls. A call goes where you send it, and that server sees what you send.
  • Pushing from Changes. Commit & push and Push send your commits to the repository's own remote with your Git and its sign-in. Short Leash never sees your credentials.
  • Pull requests, when you turn it on. With Let chat read pull requests from GitHub on (Settings › Chat), chat or a coding assistant asking about a site's pull request, or the This branch view of its Changes page, runs your own GitHub CLI (gh), which asks GitHub for the pull request of the site's current branch. GitHub receives the repository, the branch name and, for a diff, the pull request's number, under your gh sign-in. Short Leash never sees or stores your GitHub token and never posts to GitHub. It's off until you turn it on. It asks github.com only, and only reads. Short Leash keeps a pull request it read in memory for 60 seconds, then asks again.
  • Coding assistants (MCP). When you connect a coding assistant, what it reads from Short Leash goes to that assistant's provider and is handled under its terms.

Dictation, meeting notes, chat, Explain, Review this file and Draft message on the Changes page, and work coding assistants hand to Short Leash's model run on your computer and send nothing anywhere, except reading a pull request from GitHub when you've turned that on. Short Leash's own API is reachable only from your computer, and the model API for other apps, when you turn it on, listens on 127.0.0.1 only.

Buying Short Leash Pro

Polar (polar.sh) is the merchant of record for Short Leash Pro. When you buy, Polar collects your payment details, email address, name and country, and your billing address if you give one, to take the payment, charge the right tax, send your receipt and email your license key, under Polar's own privacy policy. Polar shares with us your name, email address, country and what you bought, so we can help with your license, refunds and invoices; we never see your card. We keep that for as long as you're a customer and as long as tax law requires after.

This website

This website is a static site hosted by Netlify. Netlify keeps standard server logs, such as IP addresses and the pages requested, to operate and secure its service. Requests to this website and Short Leash's downloads (downloads.shortleash.dev) also pass through Cloudflare's network, which keeps the same kind of logs for the same reason.

This website counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics. It records page views and visits, with the page's address (without its query string), the referring site, the country, the device type, browser and operating system, and how fast the page loaded. Cloudflare says it uses no cookies or local storage for this and doesn't fingerprint visitors. Visitors who block its script aren't counted.

The site sets no cookies and embeds nothing from other sites. Your choices of theme and Motion, and in the docs which system you picked in tabs, are kept in your browser's storage and never sent anywhere.

Children

Short Leash is a developer tool and isn't directed at children. We don't knowingly collect any personal information, from anyone.

Changes to this policy

Apart from the license check above, if the Short Leash app ever starts collecting anything, it will be opt-in, and this page will say so before the release that adds it. When this policy changes, the effective date at the top changes, and significant changes are announced in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions about privacy: Frank The Programmer LLC, [email protected].