Who is responsible

This policy explains how personal information is handled when you use Asten, visit this website, or write to Verne. Asten and this website are published by Verne Ltd. (“Verne”), registered in Bangladesh under company registration C-201411-1, at 8/A, Sher-e-Bangla Road, Zighatola, Dhaka-1209, Bangladesh.

For this website and for emails you send, Verne is the controller: the organization that decides why and how that information is used. For a manuscript in the desktop app, Verne is neither a controller nor a processor, because it never reaches Verne. For what you type into the hosted pre-alpha, Verne is the controller for the 24 hours it is kept.

Verne has not appointed an EU or UK representative. You can reach Verne about anything in this policy at info@vernesystems.com. Company details are published at vernesystems.com/legal/company.

What the assistant sends

Release 0.0.1b has an optional assistant in the desktop app. It is off by default, and with it off the desktop app sends nothing to any AI service. The hosted pre-alpha and the browser desk have no such feature and call no provider.

When. Only when you press send in the assistant panel, and only after you have turned on AI providers, enabled one provider, entered your own key (for a cloud provider), and consented to that provider. Consent is tied to the provider’s address: if the address changes, Asten asks again. A cap of zero means no call, and offline mode allows only a model on your own machine.

To whom. Only to the provider you chose, directly from your computer over an encrypted connection (plain HTTP only to a model on your own machine). The built-in choices are OpenAI (api.openai.com), Anthropic (api.anthropic.com), Google Gemini (generativelanguage.googleapis.com), Mistral (api.mistral.ai), DeepSeek (api.deepseek.com), Qwen (dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com), Kimi (api.moonshot.ai), GLM (open.bigmodel.cn), Ollama on your machine (127.0.0.1), or an OpenAI-compatible address you enter. Nothing goes to Verne, and Asten refuses redirects so a key cannot follow one to another site.

What. Your question and the conversation so far, the assistant’s fixed instructions, the names of the tools it may use, and what those tools return when it uses them: a mark’s code and explanation, settled facts, cast entries, page titles, source summaries. Your manuscript’s wording is left out unless you pick a passage to share, and wording quoted inside a mark is left out unless you attach that mark. Your key is never part of what is sent to a model; it travels only as the provider’s authentication header.

See it first. Before sending, you can open the exact request, with your key shown as a placeholder. Every call is also written to a spend ledger on your computer (time, provider, model, token counts, cost estimate), which Verne never sees.

Your key. Asten keeps it in your operating system’s credential store (Windows Credential Manager, the Secret Service, the Keychain) or, where there is none, in an encrypted file you unlock with a passphrase. The page you see never receives it back, and it does not appear in logs, errors, exports or the ledger.

Your manuscript and the desk

The desk keeps your projects, scenes, notes, facts, comments, snapshots, tracked changes, and diagnostics in a SQLite database on the computer where Asten runs. In the desktop app, that file is asten.db in your operating system’s application-data folder. If you run the local API yourself, it uses data/asten.db unless you point ASTEN_DATABASE_PATH somewhere else.

Asten has no account, no sync, and no telemetry. The desktop app and the local API do not upload your manuscript, your world notes, or your diagnostics to Verne or to anyone else. Verne never receives a manuscript you keep there, so Verne cannot read it, share it, or train anything on it. The hosted pre-alpha is different: what you type there is kept on Verne’s server for up to 24 hours (see the hosted pre-alpha), and it is never used to train anything either.

If you copy the database, export a file, or take your work into Word or Google Docs, that copy goes where you send it and is governed by the terms of that place.

This website

This website describes Asten. It has no sign-in and stores no projects.

  • No cookies. The site sets none. See the cookie notice.
  • No analytics and no ads. There are no tracking scripts, pixels, or advertising partners.
  • Self-hosted fonts. Typefaces are served from this site, so loading a page sends no request to a font service.
  • One optional preference. If you use the light/dark toggle, your browser saves the choice in a localStorage key named asten-theme. It stays in your browser and is never sent to Verne or anyone else.

Hosting by Vercel

The site is hosted by Vercel Inc. When your browser asks for a page, Vercel’s servers process ordinary request data: your IP address, your browser’s user agent, the time, the path requested, and the referring page if your browser sends one. Vercel uses this to deliver pages and to protect the site against abuse, such as attacks and floods of automated traffic.

Vercel handles that data under its own terms and privacy policy, including its own retention periods. Verne adds no tracking on top of it and does not use it to profile visitors.

The hosted pre-alpha

The hosted pre-alpha at asten.103.191.50.32.sslip.io lets you try the Asten workbench without installing anything. Unlike the desktop app, it runs on a server that Verne rents and operates, so what you type there does reach Verne’s server. Use it with the sample novel or with text you do not mind leaving your computer; keep your manuscript in the desktop app.

  • A private sandbox. Your first visit creates a sandbox of your own: a separate project database that no other visitor can see. It holds the projects, documents, facts and settings you create there.
  • One cookie. The sandbox is tied to a strictly necessary session cookie, asten_visitor: a random value, HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Strict, lasting 24 hours. The server stores only a hash of it. See the cookie notice.
  • Deleted after 24 hours. The sandbox, its settings and the cookie’s hash are deleted 24 hours after your first visit, or sooner if you choose About, Start over. There are no backups of sandboxes.
  • Provider keys stay in your tab. If you type an AI provider key into Settings, it is held in that browser tab’s memory only. It is never sent to the server, and no provider is called in this release.
  • Request data. The server’s web logs record your IP address, the time, the path requested and your browser’s user agent, to keep the service working and to limit abuse. They are rotated and kept no longer than 14 days. Your IP address is also used, for one hour, to limit how many sandboxes one address can create.
  • No analytics. The hosted copy runs no analytics, advertising or tracking scripts, and loads nothing from other sites.

The host name ends in sslip.io, a public DNS service that turns the name into the server’s address. Your DNS resolver asks it for that address; it receives no cookies and nothing you type.

When you email Verne

If you write to info@vernesystems.com, Verne receives your email address, your name if you include it, your message and any attachments, and the technical details that travel with every email, such as the date and the sending server.

Verne uses this to read and answer your message. Verne does not add you to a mailing list, does not send you marketing you did not ask for, and never sells or rents your address.

Verne keeps your correspondence for as long as it needs to handle your request, then deletes it within 24 months of your last message, unless the conversation continues. Messages are stored with Verne’s business email provider, which handles them on Verne’s behalf; see subprocessors.

Please do not email your manuscript. If you need to show Verne a problem, a short passage is almost always enough.

The Word and Google Docs add-ins

The Word task pane and the Google Docs sidebar are optional, and you install them yourself by sideloading. Both talk only to the Asten local API at 127.0.0.1:4317 on your own computer. A passage you file is written into your local project. It is not sent to Verne.

The Word task pane loads Office.js from Microsoft, because Word requires that library. That request is between your computer and Microsoft, under Microsoft’s terms.

The Docs sidebar runs in Google Apps Script, inside Google’s own service, next to a document Google already holds for you. Asten makes no extra copy of that document on any Verne server. Google’s terms govern Docs and Apps Script.

International transfers

Verne is based in Bangladesh. If you email Verne from another country, your message travels to Verne in Bangladesh and is stored by Verne’s business email provider, which may process it in other countries too.

Vercel runs a global network, so request data from your visit may be processed in a country other than yours. Vercel’s own terms describe how it protects data it transfers between countries.

Bangladesh and some of those countries may not have data protection laws equivalent to those where you live. Verne keeps what it receives to what this policy describes and handles it as described here.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

  • access the personal information Verne holds about you;
  • have it corrected if it is wrong;
  • have it deleted;
  • object to processing based on legitimate interests;
  • restrict processing while a question about it is resolved;
  • receive it in a portable format;
  • withdraw consent, where processing is based on consent; and
  • complain to a data protection supervisory authority, for example in the country where you live or work.

To use any of these rights, write to info@vernesystems.com. Verne may ask you to confirm the request is yours, for example by replying from the address you originally wrote from. Verne will respond within the time the applicable law allows.

In practice, the personal information Verne holds is email correspondence. There is no manuscript on Verne’s side to access, export, or delete; that stays with you. For questions about request data from a visit to this site, write to Verne and Verne will help as far as it can, or contact Vercel directly.

United States privacy rights

If you live in a US state with a consumer privacy law, such as California, you may have the right to know, access, correct, and delete personal information, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. Verne does not sell personal information. Verne does not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. Verne does not collect sensitive personal information. Verne will not treat you differently for exercising your rights. You, or an agent you authorize, can send requests to info@vernesystems.com.

Children

Asten and this website are not directed at children under 16, and Verne does not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has written to Verne, let Verne know and the correspondence will be deleted.

Security

Your manuscript lives on your computer, so its safety is mostly in your hands. Protect your device and your backups the way you would any private file. The Asten local API binds to the loopback address, 127.0.0.1, by default, so other computers on your network cannot reach it unless you change that setting.

This website is served over HTTPS, and its Content Security Policy allows scripts, styles, and fonts only from the site itself. No system is perfectly secure. If you find a weakness, please report it as described on the security page.

Changes to this policy

The “last updated” date on this page shows when this policy last changed. If Verne changes how personal information is handled, this page will be updated before the change takes effect.

Apart from the Office.js request the Word task pane must make, the update check when you press it, and the assistant’s requests to a provider you chose and consented to (see what the assistant sends), Asten sends nothing off your computer. If a future feature would send any other data anywhere, the product will say so in the interface before that feature sends anything. Updating this page alone will never be treated as enough. See the AI policy.

Contact

Questions, requests, and complaints about privacy: info@vernesystems.com. By post: Verne Ltd., 8/A, Sher-e-Bangla Road, Zighatola, Dhaka-1209, Bangladesh. The legal notice has full company details.

Questions about this page? Write to info@vernesystems.com. All policies: Legal.