Privacy policy

At Cadence, we believe privacy is a fundamental right. This policy explains how we handle your data. Short version: your voice stays on your Mac, we don't run accounts or collect usage data, and the agent features talk to AI providers through logins and keys you already control.

What We Collect

Information You Provide

None. Cadence doesn't require a Cadence account, login, or any personal information to function. Agent features rely on your existing Claude Code login, which is between you and Anthropic.

Audio & Voice Data

Speech is transcribed locally on your device using on-device speech models (NVIDIA Parakeet and Whisper). Your audio:

• Never leaves your Mac
• Is processed in memory and discarded after transcription
• Is not saved, unless you turn on the setting that keeps recordings on your Mac for testing

Text Polish (cleanup of filler words, capitalization, and punctuation) also runs on-device by default.

What Goes to AI Providers

Cadence is a control layer for AI coding agents, and those agents run on cloud models. When you use agent features, Cadence sends data to Anthropic's Claude through your own Claude Code login:

• Talk routing: what you said or typed, your agents' titles and recent output, the app and window in front, folder names in ~/Developer, and a screenshot when one is attached
• Titles and recaps: agent messages, so each agent can be named and long results summarized
• The Director and Claude Code agents: your messages and whatever those agents read or produce while working, as with Claude Code on its own

Agents you run through herdr (for example Codex, OpenCode, or Gemini) talk to their own providers under their own terms. Cadence does not route their traffic through any Cadence server.

Optional, off by default: Cloud Polish and the Intent Engine send dictated text or commands to Anthropic using an Anthropic API key you supply.

How Anthropic and other providers handle that data is governed by your agreement with them, not by this policy.

iPhone Companion (Coming Soon)

When the iPhone companion is available, it will reach your Mac directly on the same Wi-Fi, or through a relay from anywhere else. With the relay, your Mac dials out (no open ports), and every request and reply is end-to-end encrypted with AES-256-GCM using a key derived from your pairing. The relay only sees ciphertext.

Continue in the Cloud

So that your phone can keep an agent going while your Mac is asleep, the Mac keeps an end-to-end encrypted copy of each Claude Code agent at the relay while the relay is on: the repository's current commit, uncommitted changes, the conversation, and your Claude Code instructions and memory. Each agent is sealed with its own key derived from your pairing, so the relay stores only ciphertext. You can turn this off in Settings, which deletes those copies.

When you tap Continue in the cloud on your phone, that one agent's key goes through the relay to a private Vercel Sandbox in the United States, which decrypts that agent and runs it with Claude Code. During the beta, those cloud turns run on Cadence's own Claude Code login, so that conversation reaches Anthropic under Cadence's account. When your Mac takes the agent back, Cadence deletes the sandbox and what the cloud saved; a sandbox your Mac never takes back is deleted after 14 days. A Mac's encrypted copy of an agent is deleted when the agent ends or has been quiet for three days.

Update Checks

The app checks GitHub for new releases so it can offer updates. You can turn automatic checks off in Settings.

Website Analytics

Our website uses Vercel Web Analytics, which:

• Collects anonymous page views and basic traffic data
• Does NOT use cookies or track you across sites
• Does NOT collect personally identifiable information
• Complies with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations

Learn more: Vercel Analytics Privacy Policy

macOS Permissions

Cadence requires the following macOS permissions to function:

• Microphone. To capture your voice (processed locally)
• Accessibility. To type dictated text and control applications
• Input Monitoring. To detect the dictation and Talk hotkeys in any app

macOS may also ask for Screen Recording if you attach screenshots. You can revoke these permissions anytime via System Settings → Privacy & Security.

How We Use Your Information

Since we don't collect personal data, there's not much to "use." Here's what happens:

• Voice is transcribed locally and used only to type text or carry out the request you made
• Agent data goes to the providers described above, only to do what you asked
• Website analytics help us understand which pages are useful and improve the product

Third-Party Services

Depending on the features you use, Cadence or this website may interact with:

• Anthropic (agent features through your Claude Code login; optional features through your API key)
• Providers of other agent CLIs you choose to run
• Hugging Face (one-time downloads of speech and Text Polish models)
• GitHub (app downloads and update checks)
• Vercel (website analytics, the optional phone relay, and sandboxes for agents you continue in the cloud)

We do NOT use:

• Google Analytics
• Facebook Pixel
• Ad networks
• Cloud transcription services

Data Storage & Security

Local Storage: Cadence stores its settings, downloaded models, agent history, and agent titles locally on your Mac in ~/Library/Application Support/com.cadence.app.

No Cadence Cloud Sync: We don't sync your settings to a Cadence server. The only data Cadence keeps off your Mac is the encrypted agent copies described under Continue in the Cloud, and only while the phone relay is on.

Security: Cadence acts only with the macOS permissions you grant, and the phone relay is end-to-end encrypted. A sandbox you continue an agent in can read only that agent.

Your Rights

Under GDPR, CCPA, and similar privacy laws, you have the right to:

• Access your data (we don't hold personal data on our servers; local data is in the folder above)
• Delete your data (uninstall the app and delete its Application Support folder; no Cadence server-side data exists)
• Opt-out of analytics (use browser extensions or disable JavaScript on our website)

For data held by Anthropic or other AI providers, use their privacy controls.

Children's Privacy

Cadence does not knowingly collect data from children under 13. Since we don't collect personal information from anyone, this is a non-issue.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated "Last updated" date. Continued use of Cadence after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact Us

Questions about this Privacy Policy? Reach out:

• Email: privacy@cadencevoice.ai