Terms of Service

Pre-launch draft · not effective. Complete the operator, contact details, governing law, dispute process, effective date, and version before publication. Related documents are listed in the legal index.

1. Agreement and service

These Terms govern your use of the Mahanu hosted service operated by [Mahanu Operator legal name] (“Mahanu”, “we”, “us”). By creating or using an account, creating or joining a hosted project, or using a hosted feature, you agree to these Terms and the Acceptable Use Policy. The software is separately available under the MIT License; these Terms do not limit that license or a person’s right to self-host.

Mahanu provides project collaboration, optional hosted storage and sync, public project cards and publication tools, and any features made available in the service. The service is evolving and some described features are not yet available. We may change, suspend, or retire a feature with reasonable notice where practical; we will not use a change to take ownership of your content.

2. Accounts, projects, and guardians

Independent accounts are for adults who make the required age attestation and join through Mahanu’s invitation/vouch flow. Do not share credentials, evade access controls, or create an account using false authority.

A supervised account is created and controlled by its guardian, not by independent child sign-up. The Guardian Addendum forms part of these Terms whenever you create, manage, or participate through a supervised account. A guardian must have authority to act for the child and must keep recovery, device approval, memberships, publication, and provider choices under review.

Project owners and administrators are responsible for choosing members, roles, invites, privacy mode, publication, and any external service or assistant provider they enable. Membership does not make an account public; only the project’s screened public card and intentionally published work are public through Mahanu.

A bot is a labelled automated member account governed by the Bot & Automation Policy. An owner — or the guardian, where the Guardian Addendum requires — decides which bots a project uses, and a third-party bot’s operator is a separate recipient you deliberately choose, as described in Section 4. A hosted project with more than [member threshold] members or with a supervised member must run the Mahanu conduct bot described in that policy; it cannot be removed while either condition applies.

3. Your content and permissions

You retain the rights you hold in your content. To operate the hosted service, you grant Mahanu a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide permission to host, copy, transmit, process, and display your content only as necessary to provide, secure, maintain, and improve the features you choose. This permission ends when the content is deleted from our active systems, subject to the Retention & Deletion Policy, legal obligations, and copies retained by other project members.

You are responsible for having the permissions needed to add content, invite people, and publish work. When you deliberately publish content, you grant Mahanu the additional limited permission to display and distribute that public content through the service until you unpublish or delete it. The Copyright & IP Policy explains reports and public-content removal.

4. Privacy, security, and external providers

The Privacy Notice explains Mahanu’s processing of personal data. Your project’s selected privacy mode affects the service: managed-cloud projects permit the processing needed for hosted sync, search, and enabled Mahanu services; encrypted projects keep team-private sync payloads unreadable to Mahanu but change recovery, search, and assistant options.

An owner or guardian may deliberately send selected context to a custom endpoint, personal API-key provider, third-party bot, or other external provider. Those providers act under their own terms and privacy practices; Mahanu does not make a data-use promise on their behalf. Do not enable a provider unless you are authorised to send the selected material.

We use reasonable safeguards appropriate to the service, but no system is perfectly secure. You must promptly tell us about suspected unauthorised access, a lost approved device, or a security vulnerability using [email protected].

5. Paid service, grants, and support

Hosted pricing, included usage, storage, and AI charges are shown before purchase or use. Payment terms, taxes, cancellation, refunds, and renewal details must be presented at checkout and become part of these Terms. Failure to pay may limit hosted features but does not transfer ownership of your project content.

The future Support & Resources directory and direct grants are governed by Support without surveillance and a separate signed sponsor agreement. A sponsor receives only application material a project owner deliberately submits; sponsorship never buys project access, ranking, data, or editorial control.

6. Enforcement and termination

You must follow the Acceptable Use Policy. We may investigate a credible report and, proportionately, warn, remove or delist public material, suspend an invite or feature, suspend an account, or terminate hosted access. We do not use routine reading of private project notes as our moderation strategy. We may act without prior notice when necessary to protect people, the service, or comply with law.

You may stop using the hosted service at any time and request account deletion as described in the Retention & Deletion Policy. Before termination where practical, we will provide a reasonable opportunity to export your accessible project data. A deletion or removal decision does not erase copies another member already received or lawful retention obligations. The Reporting & Appeals Policy explains review routes.

7. Disclaimers, liability, and disputes

Counsel must complete this section for each launch jurisdiction. It must contain only enforceable consumer terms, including any required service warranties, limitation-of-liability language, governing law, venue or alternative dispute process, and local consumer-rights carve-outs. Nothing here excludes rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.

8. Contact and changes

Questions about these Terms go to [email protected]. We will publish the effective date and change summary for every version. Continued use after an effective non-material change may be treated as acceptance only where law permits; material changes will follow the notice and consent rules in the legal index.