Beethoven for VS Code privacy statement
Save a copy. Press Ctrl+S (⌘S on a Mac) to keep this page as a file, or print it to PDF. This is version 5; it is part of the Trial Edition License Agreement and of the Full Edition License Agreement.
Version 5, 2026-09-30. Part of the Beethoven for VS Code Trial Edition License Agreement (LICENSE.txt) and of the Beethoven for VS Code Full Edition License Agreement (LICENSE-FULL.txt). You can save and print this text; it is also on the Beethoven support page.
Who collects: Gregory Schwing, trading as OpenSpineConsortium (“Licensor”), the maintainer of Beethoven for VS Code. Questions and requests: the notice address on the Beethoven support page (in VS Code: Beethoven: Support page). Beethoven for VS Code is licensed to individuals; it is not provided by or on behalf of any school, and Licensor is not acting for one.
What stays on your laptop
| Data | Where | Why | You control it by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beethoven for VS Code settings (AccessID, hostnames, worker defaults) | VS Code settings | to reach your grid account | editing Settings, or Beethoven: Reset |
| Your GitHub and Hugging Face tokens, and an optional Anthropic Console key | your operating system’s credential store (VS Code SecretStorage) | so your own tools can use them on your laptop and, copied, in your grid account | Beethoven: Manage stored tokens; revoking the token at the service |
| Your license key and the institutional identity you signed in with (AccessID, e-mail) | ~/.beethoven-local (on a computer that ran an earlier release: ~/.ashley-local) and VS Code’s state |
to check that the license names you | Beethoven: License (remove the key); Beethoven: Reset |
| Your acceptance of the agreement: its version and text hashes, the statements you ticked with their wording, your typed name, the time, and the exact texts shown | terms.json and terms/<version>/ in the same folder; VS Code’s state |
to prove the agreement and its terms, for you and for Licensor | it is yours to read, copy and print; Beethoven: Reset removes it |
| Copies of every error report Beethoven for VS Code prepared, sent or not | the extension’s storage folder | so you can read exactly what left your laptop | Beethoven: Error reports |
| Troubleshooter reports and the Beethoven for VS Code log | the extension’s storage folder; the Output panel | diagnosis | Beethoven: Reset |
Beethoven for VS Code never reads, stores, copies or relays a Claude credential. Claude Code keeps its own sign-in, on your laptop and in your grid account (~/.beethoven/claude); Beethoven for VS Code reads only Claude Code’s yes-or-no answer about whether it is signed in.
What goes to your own grid account
With your consent in each step: your GitHub and Hugging Face tokens and optional Console key (a file readable only by you), your license key, and the settings needed for the worker. Everything there is in your own account under your institution’s rules; Licensor has no access to it.
What goes to services you already use
Your own accounts’ services receive what your use of them entails: Anthropic (your Claude conversations, through Claude Code; while your phone is connected through Remote Control, the session transcript is stored on Anthropic’s servers), GitHub, Hugging Face, Microsoft (the institutional sign-in), and your institution’s grid. Those parties’ privacy terms apply to that data, not this statement.
Address lookups. About once an hour Beethoven for VS Code reads services.json from the Beethoven website (openspineconsortium.com/beethoven, on GitHub Pages), and about once a day the signed list of withdrawn keys and the list of approved AccessIDs from the lab’s access service. These requests carry nothing about you beyond what any web request carries (your network address); the files hold addresses and lists only, and Beethoven for VS Code makes none of these requests before you have accepted the agreement.
What may go to Licensor
Error reports, only if you allow them. When one of Beethoven for VS Code’s own checks fails or is repaired, and only if error reports are on in Beethoven for VS Code and telemetry is on in VS Code, and only if your lab has configured a report address, Beethoven for VS Code sends one report per distinct failure per day. It contains:
- Beethoven for VS Code version, grid-script version, VS Code version, operating system and processor family;
- a random installation identifier created on your laptop (not derived from you or the machine);
- the time of the check;
- for each check: its id, verdict and duration;
- for failing or repaired checks: the check’s message, and the last error lines of Beethoven for VS Code’s own log, with e-mail addresses, AccessIDs, file paths, hostnames, network addresses, job numbers and anything token-shaped replaced by placeholders;
- a hash of the failing checks, so the same failure is reported once a day.
It never contains your prompts, files, tokens, AccessID, e-mail or environment values. You choose at first use whether to send reports, and can change the choice any time in Settings (Beethoven: Diagnostics: Share) or with Beethoven: Error reports, which also shows what a report contains and opens the copies kept on your laptop.
Access requests and access keys. If you ask for access on the Beethoven support site, the request form records what you enter: AccessID, name, Wayne State e-mail, what you will use Beethoven for VS Code for, and the time. Obtaining a key carries the Microsoft sign-in token VS Code holds for your institutional account, so the access service can ask Microsoft who you are and issue a key in your name only if your AccessID is approved. The service records your AccessID, your e-mail, your name as Microsoft gives it, the license id and dates, the time, and the approval, denial and withdrawal decisions about you. The published list of approved AccessIDs contains AccessIDs only.
License records. When Licensor issues you a key, the record holds your name as given, AccessID, e-mail, edition, dates and the key itself. When you accept the agreement, the acceptance record described above is kept with your license record; a Full Edition acceptance is a second record of the same kind.
A notice under the agreement, if you send one (a dispute notice, a refund request, an outage claim): what you write in it, kept with your license record.
How Licensor uses and keeps it
Error reports are used to find and fix defects in Beethoven for VS Code and to decide what to build next. Reviewing them and drafting fixes is assisted by AI tools running on Licensor’s own accounts; every change proposed that way is reviewed by a person and tested before release. Reports are kept for at most 365 days. License, trial and acceptance records are kept for the life of the license and six years after, to prove the agreement and for accounting and disputes. Nothing is sold or used for advertising. Processors acting for Licensor (hosting, the licence service) see only what they need to run the service.
Security and breaches
Licensor keeps reasonable security measures for the systems that hold license records and error reports, and will notify you as Michigan law (MCL 445.72) requires if a breach affects your personal information held by Licensor.
Your choices and rights
Turn error reports off at any time; ask Licensor for a copy or deletion of your license or report records (deletion of a license record ends the license). Michigan residents and residents of other states may have further rights under their state’s laws; Licensor honours requests it is obliged to honour and answers others where it reasonably can.
Children
Beethoven for VS Code is for adults, or minors with a parent’s or guardian’s consent (LICENSE.txt section 21).
Changes
A new version of this statement ships with the Beethoven for VS Code version it applies to and is shown for acceptance when it changes materially.