Last updated: 7 November 2026
GitComet is made by AutoExplore Oy, a company registered in Finland (business identity code 3495946-3, VAT FI34959463), with its registered office at Annankatu 11, 53100 Lappeenranta, Finland. AutoExplore Oy is the controller for the personal data described here. Contact us at gitcomet@gitcomet.dev.
This policy covers the open-source GitComet client, the GitComet Pro desktop client and account service at pro.gitcomet.dev, our websites at gitcomet.dev and docs.gitcomet.dev, the waitlist, support enquiries, and contributions to GitComet, including contributor licence agreements (CLAs).
1. The short version
GitComet works with repositories on your device. Normal desktop use does not upload your local repositories to AutoExplore. Network features communicate with the services involved, such as your Git host, GitHub for update checks, an image host or, in Pro, an AI provider you choose to use. If you send us a support request, crash report or contribution, we receive the content you share.
For Pro, we process information needed to run your account, connect devices, provide licences, manage organisations and take payment. The account service does not use website analytics.
Our public websites count visits in aggregate, without cookies and without reading anything from your device. Google Analytics runs only if you accept it, as described in section 4.
We do not sell personal data or use it for targeted advertising. We share it with the service providers and other recipients described in this policy.
2. The open-source client
The open-source client needs no GitComet account and sends us no usage analytics. It does make network requests:
- Updates. Automatic checks are enabled by default and contact GitHub. GitHub receives your IP address and the application version, operating system and processor architecture. You can turn automatic checks off in settings.
- Git and external content. Remote operations communicate with your Git hosts. Markdown previews load remote images by default; the image host, and any host it redirects to, receives your IP address, the image address and the application version, operating system and processor architecture. You can change remote-image loading in settings.
- Crash reports. Crash information is written locally. Choosing Report Issue opens a pre-filled GitHub issue in your browser. The report text is sent to GitHub when that page opens, before you submit the issue. It contains the application version, system details, the failure message and backtrace, and the crash log's file path, which usually contains your computer user name. You can edit it before posting, but a submitted issue is public. Review it before posting, or contact support privately instead.
- User survey. The client can invite you to an optional survey. Answering opens a Google Form, and Google processes your answers under its own terms.
Download hosts and package distributors also receive information needed to deliver an installer or update, under their own privacy terms.
3. What we collect, and why
Pro accounts and devices
We process your email address, account identifiers, sign-in and verification information, and names you supply, to operate and secure your account. Our sign-in service manages credentials and links to the identity providers you choose. Those providers supply identity information under their own terms. You can edit your given and family names; your display name is derived from those names or your email address.
Connecting a device sends an installation identifier, a device label and connection activity. By default the app labels the device with your computer's host name where it can read one, which may include your name. We use these records to show your devices and manage access and licences.
Payments and organisations
Stripe processes payments, subscriptions, tax and invoices. We store billing identifiers, a billing email address, and subscription and entitlement records. Payment notifications sent to us by Stripe can also contain contact and billing details, tax identifiers and limited payment-method details such as card brand and last four digits. We do not receive full card numbers or card security codes. Invoices shown in your account are retrieved from Stripe. If you redeem an Early Access invitation code, we record which account redeemed it.
For organisations, we process the organisation's name, membership and roles, invitation email addresses, billing information, and any single sign-on and domain-verification information. Other members of an organisation can see your email address, role and the date you joined. An administrator may provide your email address when inviting you, even before you have an account.
Forge connections
Pro stores forge credentials in your device's credential store and connects directly to the selected provider. Connection settings and repository approvals are kept on that device. The provider processes the connection under its own terms and may make app installation or authorisation information available to the app owner. Deleting a GitComet account does not delete your account or repositories at a forge.
Security and service operation
We keep records needed to prevent abuse, investigate problems and establish what happened to an account. These include account and device identifiers, sign-in and security events, organisation changes, licensing and billing events, deletion requests and download activity.
Hosting and security logs can contain IP addresses, requested addresses, request headers, browser or application information, timestamps, errors and performance information. Requested addresses can contain account, device or organisation identifiers and sign-in domains. Error records and database error messages can include personal data associated with a failed operation. Abuse controls use identifiers or protected representations of them to count requests and limit misuse.
When the account application in your browser hits an error or stops responding for more than a few seconds, it sends us an error report. The report contains the error message, with email addresses and identifiers masked, the location in our code where it happened, the page path with identifiers removed, how long the page was unresponsive, the application version and your browser type and version. We use error reports only to find and fix faults, not to identify or profile you. They are kept in our application logs for the period in section 9; after that we keep only the number of errors.
The waitlist and support
If you join the waitlist, we receive your email address and any optional comment. If you have accepted analytics (section 4), we also receive how you arrived: referring pages, landing addresses and their query parameters, campaign tags, advertising click identifiers, visit times and the sign-up page or control you used, including an earlier visit the website remembered. These records are associated with your email address; they are not anonymous statistics. Without that consent, a sign-up carries none of this information.
We use this information to manage the waitlist, tell you when GitComet Pro is available and send the related updates you asked for by joining. To leave the waitlist, email gitcomet@gitcomet.dev. You do not need a Pro account.
When you contact us, we receive your contact details, correspondence and any files or diagnostics you choose to send. Share only what is needed for the enquiry.
GitComet Pro can also send a bug report, idea or crash report from the app when you choose to. A report contains the title and description you write, the app version, build and platform, and for a crash a stack trace of code addresses, without file contents or paths. Reports are stored encrypted for the period in section 9 and used only to answer and fix what you reported. Your IP address is used only in a protected form, to limit misuse of the report service.
Contributions and contributor agreements
If you contribute, we process your GitHub identity, public profile and contribution history, and information in issues, pull requests and commits. These contributions and their attribution are public on GitHub.
For an individual CLA, we collect your full legal name, contact email, GitHub identity, the agreement version and acceptance time. An entity agreement also contains the organisation's details, its representative's name, role and signature, and the contributors it authorises. We may keep related correspondence, including evidence of employer or guardian authority. We use these records to administer contributions and establish the rights to use and distribute them, not to subscribe contributors to marketing.
Electronic acceptance uses CLA Assistant, operated by SAP. GitHub and SAP process information under their own terms. Authorised project administrators can access agreement records. The public contribution check may show whether a CLA requirement has been met; we do not intentionally publish signed agreements or private contact details. Git commit names and email addresses can nevertheless be public as part of the contribution itself.
4. Cookies, browser storage and website measurement
The Pro account service
The Pro account and sign-in services use short-lived, necessary cookies to keep you signed in, secure the sign-in process and carry an invitation through it. The identity service has its own necessary sign-in cookies. Appearance preferences can be saved in your browser. The account service loads its application resources from our own origin and has no third-party analytics or advertising tags. If you have accepted Google Analytics on our websites, your browser also sends those analytics cookies with requests to the account service; the service does not read or store them.
Aggregate traffic statistics on the websites
The delivery networks that serve our websites produce aggregate statistics from the requests they receive: how many times pages are requested, which sites referred visitors, approximate country, browser and device type, and data volumes. This uses no cookies and reads nothing from your device. The providers process the request information, such as your IP address, to deliver the page and compile the totals; we use these statistics only in aggregate. This applies to every visitor, whatever cookie choice you make.
Optional Google Analytics
With your consent, the websites also use Google Analytics through Google Tag Manager to understand visits, page use, downloads and interactions in more detail. Neither loads, and no request goes to Google's analytics services, until you accept. Google Analytics can process page addresses, referrers, approximate location, device and browser information, interaction events and measurement identifiers. Advertising features and personalisation are disabled.
We remember your cookie choice for one year and share that choice between the website and the documentation. If you accept, Google Analytics cookies distinguish visits and sessions. The website can also remember the first visit for attribution for up to 90 days and the latest visit during the browsing session. Browser storage does not erase itself on a timer: expired attribution is discarded when the site next checks it. Appearance preferences remain until changed or cleared.
Use Cookie settings in either site's footer to change your choice. Rejecting stops Google Analytics, deletes the Google Analytics cookies our sites can access and clears the website's saved attribution. Attribution saved by the website is not used after you reject on the documentation site; it is removed when you next change your choice on the website, clear its site data, or when it expires after 90 days. Changing your choice does not undo information already received; contact us about deletion of information we hold.
Other requests from the websites
The websites also make requests needed to serve pages and public repository information, including requests to our hosting providers and GitHub. Those services receive request information such as your IP address. Fonts are hosted with the sites; we do not use Google Fonts. Video pages show a play button: the YouTube player (from youtube-nocookie.com, operated by Google) loads only when you press it, and Google then receives your IP address and browser information under its own terms.
5. AI features in Pro
AI features are optional and off by default; one setting turns them all off. When you turn them on, Pro uses the model you configure: a model running on your device, an OpenAI-compatible or Anthropic endpoint with your own API key (such as OpenAI, Anthropic or OpenRouter), or a coding-agent tool you have installed and signed in to with your own account (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode or GitHub Copilot).
When you ask for a commit message, notes about a change or an explanation, Pro sends the relevant changes and context to the provider you selected. When you use a coding agent, for example to resolve a merge, the agent may send prompts, code, file contents, command output and other context to its provider, such as Anthropic, OpenAI or GitHub, according to that tool's settings and terms. A process running locally can still contact an online provider.
AutoExplore does not host AI inference or relay these requests. Pro keeps the AI notes it generates about changes on your device until you delete them; signing out does not remove them. Coding-agent tools and AI providers may keep their own history and copies under their own settings and retention policies.
6. Why we process personal data
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Providing an account, licences, purchases and requested service communications | Performance of a contract or steps you request before entering one |
| Accounting and tax records | Legal obligation |
| Securing the service, preventing abuse and keeping operational and audit records | Legitimate interests in protecting the service and resolving incidents and disputes |
| Answering support enquiries and in-app reports | Performance of a contract where applicable; otherwise our legitimate interest in answering requests and supporting GitComet |
| Aggregate website traffic statistics | Legitimate interests in knowing which pages and channels work, so that we can run and improve GitComet; no information is read from your device |
| Optional Google Analytics and saved visit attribution | Consent, which you can withdraw through Cookie settings |
| Waitlist updates | Consent given by joining, which you can withdraw by contacting us |
| Administering contributions and contributor agreements | Performance of the agreement with an individual contributor; legitimate interests in administering entity contributions and verifying authority |
| Retaining evidence of contribution rights and handling legal claims | Legitimate interests in demonstrating the rights to distribute GitComet and establishing, exercising or defending legal claims; legal obligations where applicable |
You can object to processing based on legitimate interests, including the aggregate statistics, by contacting us.
An email address is needed to join the waitlist or open a Pro account. Billing information is needed for a purchase, and agreement and authority information is needed to accept contributions under a CLA. Optional comments and analytics consent are not conditions of using the open-source client or joining the waitlist.
Automated security and licensing checks can restrict access. Contact us if you believe a restriction is wrong, so a person can review it.
7. Who receives personal data
Our Subprocessor List explains the principal providers and distinguishes services acting for us from those with their own controller responsibilities. They include:
- Amazon Web Services for the Pro service, and Cloudvisor, UAB (Lithuania), the AWS partner through which we buy AWS. Cloudvisor manages billing for those accounts and retains administrative access to them.
- Microsoft: Azure for the public websites and the waitlist, and Microsoft 365 for our email.
- Stripe for payments.
- Google for optional website analytics, the YouTube player when you press play, and user survey forms.
- GitHub for source hosting, releases, update checks, development and contributions.
- SAP for CLA Assistant.
We may disclose relevant records to professional advisers or authorities where needed to meet legal obligations or handle a claim. Access to private account, support and contributor records is limited to people who need it for those purposes, and to the providers above acting for us under contract. Public contributions are visible to anyone.
Forges, sign-in providers, package distributors, AI services and community services you choose, such as our Discord server, also process information under their own terms. Your organisation is responsible for its use of member information and its own sign-in provider.
8. International processing
The Pro service's servers, database and backups are in AWS's Stockholm, Sweden region. This does not mean all processing stays in the EU: the content delivery network handles account traffic outside the EU, account requests pass through it even when they are not cached, and firewall request logs and the delivery network's certificates and firewall configuration are in AWS's United States (US East) region.
The public websites, documentation and waitlist use Microsoft Azure in the EU, served through Microsoft's global delivery network. Open-source installers are delivered through GitHub and package distributors. Microsoft, Google, GitHub, SAP and Stripe operate internationally; Cloudvisor is based in the EU. Contributor records and public contributions are not subject to an EU-only storage promise.
For transfers for which we are responsible, we use the safeguards required by applicable data-protection law, such as an adequacy decision or the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, with additional measures where needed. Providers acting as separate controllers explain their own transfers in their privacy notices. Contact us for information about the safeguards applicable to your data or to request a copy.
9. How long we keep information
We keep information for the purpose for which it was collected, including any necessary accounting, security or legal retention. For the Pro service, the current retention arrangements are:
| Information | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account, device and organisation records | While needed to provide the service, with the exceptions after deletion explained in section 11 |
| Sign-in and verification records, invitations and abuse counters | Usually minutes or days, and at most 90 days; expired records are removed by periodic cleanup |
| Payment notifications | Notification contents for 90 days after processing; event identifiers are retained to prevent duplicate processing. Unprocessed or failed notifications currently have no automatic expiry |
| Reports sent from the Pro app | Up to 90 days |
| Account audit records | Two years |
| Records of licences issued | Five years |
| Application, sign-in service and database logs, including error reports from the account application | Up to 30 days |
| Error and freeze counts, which contain no personal data | Up to 15 months |
| Firewall request logs, with credentials and query strings removed, and logs of rejected network connections | Up to 90 days |
| Routine database backups, including a backup kept when a service environment is retired | Up to 35 days |
| Administrative activity records | Up to one year |
Some deletion, identity and billing records, and device identifiers and connection dates, currently have no automatic expiry. They may therefore outlast the routine retention periods above. Deleting an account is not a promise that all remaining records have become anonymous.
Waitlist information is kept while needed for the updates you requested and to manage your subscription; contact us to leave or request deletion. We keep email support correspondence for as long as needed to deal with the enquiry and any related dispute. A limited record of an opt-out may be retained to respect your choice. Waitlist records and email correspondence do not currently have an automatic deletion schedule.
Contribution and CLA records are kept for as long as needed to establish the rights to use and distribute the contributions and to deal with legal claims. Because contribution licences are long-term, this can extend beyond your involvement in the project or the life of a Pro account. Public contributions and attribution may remain in project history and copies made by others. SAP and GitHub also apply their own retention rules.
10. Your rights and choices
Subject to the conditions in applicable law, you can request access, correction, erasure, restriction or portability of your personal data. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests and withdraw consent at any time without affecting processing already carried out on that basis. You can always object to direct marketing.
Write to gitcomet@gitcomet.dev. We may ask for information needed to verify your identity and normally respond within one month. If a permitted extension is needed, we will explain it within that month. These rights also apply to waitlist subscribers and contributors; you do not need to have bought Pro.
The Pro account service includes account deletion with an additional identity check and a seven-day cancellation period. Deletion revokes access and devices, cancels personal subscriptions, removes memberships and open invitations you sent, removes or minimises your personal data in our systems, and requests deletion from the sign-in service and minimisation at Stripe, except what we must keep (section 11). A licence already stored on an offline device stops working when it expires. If you are an organisation's sole administrator, arrange another administrator or delete the organisation first; a scheduled organisation deletion must complete, which can take up to 30 days, before your account can be erased.
Deleting a Pro account does not delete local repositories, AI notes or a coding-agent tool's history on your device, forge accounts, public contributions or contributor agreements. Contact us separately about contributor or support records, and contact an independent provider about information it controls.
You can complain to the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman or your local data-protection authority.
11. What remains after account deletion
Accounting and payment records may need to be retained. The deletion process asks Stripe to minimise its customer record, but Stripe keeps its own invoice, tax and payment records. Download invoices you need before closing your account, as you will lose access to the account page.
Audit and licence records, deletion evidence, device identifiers and connection dates, some identity and billing identifiers, and backup copies may also remain as described in section 9. Deletion evidence includes protected representations of contact information. These are still personal data where they can be connected to you; we do not describe them as anonymous or as containing no personal data.
Deleting an account or asking to erase contributor information does not automatically revoke a licence granted under a CLA. We may retain the evidence needed to demonstrate those rights or handle a legal claim. We will explain any applicable limitation when responding to an erasure request.
12. Younger users
The open-source client does not require an account. You must be at least 18 to purchase GitComet Pro. A person under 18 may use it only with the consent of a parent or legal guardian, who agrees to the Terms of Service on their behalf. If a person under 18 has an account without that consent, contact us so we can remove it; we will deal with any payment as the law requires.
Contributing under a CLA is a separate matter: a contributor under 18 should have a parent or guardian contact us to arrange the agreement, as set out in the contributor terms. Do not post a minor's private contact or guardian information in a public issue or pull request.
13. Security
We use access controls, encryption and other measures appropriate to the information we process. Our Security Overview describes how we protect the Pro service. Report vulnerabilities or suspected account compromise to gitcomet@gitcomet.dev.
14. Related documents
15. Changes and contact
We will update this policy when our processing changes. For a material change, we will provide an appropriate notice on our websites or directly where the change affects you. New processing that requires consent will not rely on consent given for a different purpose.
AutoExplore Oy
Annankatu 11, 53100 Lappeenranta, Finland
Business identity code 3495946-3 ยท VAT FI34959463
Privacy, support, billing, licences, contributor records and security: gitcomet@gitcomet.dev