SpecStory
Docs›Data Privacy

FAQs & Privacy

Data Privacy

Transparency into what we collect and access to deliver SpecStory

This page describes, feature by feature, what SpecStory accesses and collects. It is not a legal agreement — for the binding terms, see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Services we use to collect data

We use PostHog to collect product analytics. When you install the SpecStory Extension tracking is turned on by default. You may turn it off in settings via: specstory.helpUsImprove.

  • We log events including: when the extension is activated, when an auto-save occurs, when a manual save occurs, when a share occurs, when a custom rule is derived and when errors occur.
  • We use this telemetry to calculate total installs, active user counts and to understand other patterns like user retention.

We also use PostHog to collect web analytics, both on Specstory.com and share.specstory.com.

  • We use log events to understand time on site, improve usability in our share experience and monitor our own traffic and traffic to shares.
  • If you turn off specstory.helpUsImprove in the Extension settings it will not apply to the web analytics we collect.

In SpecStory v0.7.0 and later for the optional and Derived Rules feature, we use:

What data is accessed and collected in the SpecStory extension (by feature)

Auto-saves and manual saves

Privacy

Usage of these features never transmits your prompts or code in assistant responses to SpecStory.

Each of these features read from your local chat history stored in a sqlite3 state.vscdb, chat.jsons, or Claude Code session files in different folders depending on your OS on your machine.

  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\globalStorage\state.vscdb
  • MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb
  • Linux: ~/.config/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb

These saves are then stored in your project's .specstory folder.

SpecStory Cloud

Note

Usage of this feature transmits prompts and code in assistant responses to SpecStory.

SpecStory Cloud stores your session histories on our servers so you can search, organize, and share them.

  • Uploads are opt-in. Your sessions stay on your machine unless you log in and then explicitly run a command or set a configuration that uploads them.
  • You can delete uploaded sessions from Cloud.

Shares

Note

Usage of this features transmits prompts and code in assistant responses to SpecStory.

This feature allows you to publish a session you have uploaded to Cloud as a public link. Sharing requires a SpecStory Cloud account — you must be logged in, and you choose which sessions to share.

  • Sharing a session creates a link on SpecStory Cloud. Anyone with the link can view it without logging in, so a shared session is public.
  • A share is a live link rather than a snapshot: new exchanges added to a shared session appear in the shared view automatically.
  • You can make a session private again at any time, which causes the share link to return a 404. You can also delete the session.

Derived Rules

Note

Usage of this features transmits prompts, code in assistant responses, markdown header information you supply and your project's metadata to SpecStory.

This feature allows you to save time and improve code generation quality.

  • When you authenticate into the Extension and turn on the feature, as you prompt we send your prompt history, prior derived rules, file headers and project directory metadata to an LLM.
  • We log these requests via Helicone by user to track cost, response quality, error rates and prevent abuse.
  • We conduct aggregate analysis on the requests made by users of this feature to improve it.