---
title: "Undercut — what we can see"
description: "Pro's policy sync is an authenticated licence check (account ID, IP, timestamp, policy version), not telemetry about your work. Retention: 30-day raw logs, then aggregate-only. Never correlated to session content or working directory. Includes a proxy-vs-Undercut comparison and the sync-cadence opt-out."
canonical: "https://getundercut.sh/data.md"
last-updated: "2026-10-06"
---

# Undercut — what we can see

> Machine-readable version of https://getundercut.sh/data for agents. See also
> https://getundercut.sh/privacy for the free, no-account tier (no cookies, no analytics,
> no network calls at all).

Free sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and makes no network calls — the skill is a file your
agent reads locally. Pro adds exactly one network thing: your machine periodically fetches a
signed policy file so its tier→model map stays current. That fetch is a licence/entitlement
check, not telemetry about your work. This page states specifically what it reveals, what it
never sees, retention, and how it differs from a proxy.

## What an authenticated policy fetch reveals

Four fields, because they're what any authenticated HTTP request necessarily carries:

- **Account ID** — which subscription is asking.
- **IP address** — where the request came from.
- **Timestamp** — when it happened.
- **Current policy version** — which revision your machine already has, so we know whether to
  send a diff or say "no changes."

That's the complete list. Nothing else is in the request or logged from it.

## Why this differs from telemetry

"No telemetry" elsewhere on this site means no data about *your work* — no prompts, code, file
paths, repo names, or session content leaves your machine. A policy fetch carries none of that;
it's the same category of signal any paid product's server needs to check entitlement, the way a
license server or subscription paywall works. It is unavoidable for any authenticated request and
categorically different from watching what you build. A sync is never correlated to a coding
session or a working directory — the server cannot distinguish "you ran a task" from "your
refresh timer elapsed."

## What a fetch never contains

Request logging on the policy endpoint runs off an explicit allowlist (the same pattern
`/api/lead` uses for form fields) — nothing is captured by default. Never logged or transmitted:
prompts, code, file contents, file paths, working directory, repo name, session content, the
`User-Agent` string, or which coding agent you're running.

## The pull request badge

The Claude Code plugin adds a one-line footer to pull requests, with a small badge image served
from `getundercut.sh/badge.svg`. That image is fetched by whoever views the pull request (through
GitHub's image proxy), not by your machine, so we can see how many times the image is requested.
The URL is the same static file for everyone: it carries no account, repo, user or session
identifier, and the request tells us nothing about your code. Turn it off with
`undercut config attributionBadge off` (the footer text stays), or the whole footer with
`undercut config attribution off`.

## Retention

- Raw access logs (account ID, IP, timestamp, policy version): **30 days**, then deleted.
- After 30 days: aggregate, non-per-account counters only (total sync volume, for capacity
  planning) — never a reconstructable per-user activity timeline.

## What a proxy does vs. what Undercut does

| Question | A live routing proxy | What Undercut does |
|---|---|---|
| Sees each prompt/response? | Yes — it's in the request path | No — dispatch decisions happen locally, in the agent, from the policy file already on disk |
| Brokers your live model traffic? | Yes — every call passes through it | No — your agent talks to your model provider directly |
| What crosses the network to us? | Every request and response body | Only a periodic pull of a small signed policy file (the four fields above) |
| If it goes down mid-session? | Every in-flight call breaks — single point of failure | Nothing breaks — the agent keeps using the last cached policy file |
| If the vendor disappeared entirely? | Routing stops — no traffic path without it | The last cached `policy.json` keeps working indefinitely; failing that, the free static `models.md` map. Dispatch never depends on us being reachable |

Nothing decides per call on the network path — still not a proxy. For the
full schema of that signed policy file, how the ed25519 signature is
verified, and what happens on a failed or expired check, see
https://getundercut.sh/policy-file.md.

## Sync cadence is local, client-initiated, and optional

The default is a daily check, but that describes a client-side timer, not a service watching you.
No resident daemon runs on either end — your machine's own process wakes, checks whether the
cached policy is past its TTL, and if so makes one outbound request. Nothing about the mechanism
requires the daily default:

- **Slow it down** — set a longer TTL and sync weekly or monthly.
- **Disable it** — the last cached policy keeps being used until you turn sync back on.
- **Run fully offline, indefinitely** — download the signed policy bundle once and drop it in
  place by hand; signature verification still applies, there's just no periodic fetch.

## Contact

Questions about this or any other data-handling detail: https://iamjustinwinter.com. See also
https://getundercut.sh/privacy for the free tier's full data handling.