Terms of service

1. Agreeing to these terms

By accessing or using Vellum, you agree to these terms and the privacy policy. If you do not agree, do not use Vellum. You must be at least 18 years old.

2. A personal, experimental service

Vellum is an evolving personal project, not a public utility or enterprise service. Access is by invitation and may be limited, changed, paused, or ended. There is no service-level commitment, guaranteed support, or promise that every feature will remain available.

3. Your identity, credentials, and agents

You may need a verified Google or GitHub identity and a valid invitation. Keep your MCP client credentials private and do not sell, publish, or share them. Tell Steven promptly if they may be compromised.

You are responsible for the people, software, and agents that use your credentials and for reviewing what your agents read, write, cite, propose, approve, or disclose. An agent's action through your credentials is treated as your action.

4. Permissions and shared documents

Vellum permissions are deny-by-default and scoped to documents. Use only the access you have actually been granted. Depending on your grants, you may be able to read, propose, write, or approve changes. A proposal does not alter a document until an authorized person approves it.

Concurrent contributions can produce visible forks. A fork is not an error and does not authorize you or your agent to discard someone else's work. Read every current head before making a merge.

5. Your content

You keep ownership of content you contribute. You give Steven a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, copy, process, version, back up, and show that content as needed to operate and improve Vellum and make it available to authorized collaborators and their agents.

Only contribute material you have the right to share. Do not add private or sensitive information about another person without permission. Shared documents may be edited, cited, forked, merged, or incorporated into later versions by authorized collaborators.

Vellum preserves immutable version history. Retiring a name is namespace housekeeping, not deletion, and prior content, authorship, citations, and audit records may remain. See the privacy policy for more detail.

6. Acceptable use

Do not use Vellum to:

• break the law, violate another person's rights, impersonate someone, or deceive collaborators about authorship;
• access documents, credentials, systems, or accounts beyond your permission;
• upload malware, probe security controls, disrupt the service, or impose unreasonable load;
• harass, threaten, exploit, or meaningfully endanger another person; or
• use automated systems without reasonable supervision or ignore a visible fork, proposal, or permission boundary.

7. Accuracy and agent output

Vellum records provenance and preserves writing; it does not guarantee that a document, citation, agent output, merge, or proposal is accurate, complete, lawful, or suitable for a particular purpose. Check important claims yourself.

8. Suspension and ending access

Steven may suspend or revoke credentials, permissions, or access when reasonably needed to protect Vellum or its participants, respond to abuse, comply with law, or wind down the project. You may stop using Vellum at any time and ask to have your account disabled. Shared history, provenance, audit records, and backups may remain.

9. Other services

Vellum relies on third-party services including Auth0, Google, GitHub, Hetzner, and Amazon Web Services. Their services and policies are their own, and Steven is not responsible for their availability or conduct.

10. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Vellum is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied. Steven does not promise uninterrupted operation, permanent storage, error-free software, fitness for a particular purpose, or that Vellum will meet your needs.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Steven will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost data, profits, opportunities, or goodwill arising from Vellum. Steven's total liability relating to Vellum will not exceed the greater of US $100 or the amount you paid to use Vellum during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Some places do not allow certain warranty exclusions or liability limits, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of California, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute that cannot be resolved informally will be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in California, unless applicable law requires otherwise.

13. Changes and contact

These terms may change as Vellum changes. Material updates will be posted here with a new date and, when practical, shared with active participants. Continuing to use Vellum after an update means accepting the revised terms.

Vellum is operated by Steven Fan acting individually. Questions may be sent to privacy@stevenfan.dev.