Privacy

This site collects an email address if you give one, your answers if you ask to join the Broadfork Beta, a record of each sign-in to the Broadfork Beta, a problem report if you send one from the Broadfork app, your answers if you test the Broadfork Beta, and nothing else.

That is the whole of it. The rest of this page says what happens to that address, who can see it, how to have it removed, and the one thing the page loads from somewhere else. It is written to be read rather than to be survived.

What this covers

This page covers broadfork.app, which today is one page and a mailing list signup, the Broadfork Beta at beta.broadfork.app, a build of the app for invited testers, and the open demo at try.broadfork.app, a preview of the app for anyone. The Broadfork app is still being built and is not released. When it is, it will have its own account and data handling, and this page will be extended to cover it before that happens.

What is kept when you sign up

If you submit the form, this is what is written down:

• The email address you typed.
• A lowercased copy of it, which is how a repeat signup is recognised.
• The date and time, in UTC.
• The exact sentence you agreed to, and a version number for it.
• Where the form was: the path of the page on this site, or the demo's address when you sign up from inside it.
• A random token, generated then, which is what the unsubscribe link in the email uses.

The consent sentence is stored because a record that you agreed to something is worth nothing unless it also says what you agreed to. Storing it later is not possible, so it is stored at the time.

What is kept when you ask to join the Broadfork Beta

The form on the Broadfork Beta page keeps everything above, and these, on the same record:

• That you asked, and the date and time, in UTC.
• The exact sentence you agreed to there, and a version number for it.
• Whatever you chose to fill in: a little about you, your age range, how you are with technology, what level of gardener you are, where you garden, what your garden is, what you use now to keep track, which app if you use another one, and what you would test on. All of it is optional.

Those answers are used to choose testers and to read what testers report. If you are already on the list, asking replaces any answers you gave before, and it does not sign you up twice.

What is kept when you send a problem report from the app

The Broadfork app has a Report a problem card. Nothing is sent unless you press Send, and the card shows you every line of the report before you do. When you send one, this is what is written down:

• The date and time it arrived, and the time the app composed it.
• Which build of the app it came from, and which version of its storage.
• Your browser, as it names itself, and your screen size.
• How much memory the map's drawing engine was using, and whether it was drawing on the graphics card or in software.
• The error messages the app had seen in that sitting.
• Which screen you were on, the year the map was showing, the number of the bed you had selected and of any planting you were placing. Numbers, never names.
• The last sentence the app's top bar showed you, and a one line note on whether the browser has promised to keep your garden.
• The timings of your last few clicks, as the app measured them, and the last ten sentences the app's top bar showed you, which can name a bed or a crop.
• The last ten screens you moved between, and how long the sitting had run.
• Coarse facts about the machine the browser reports to any page: processor cores, memory to the nearest gigabyte, connection type, touch points, light or dark, whether the browser has promised to keep the app's storage and how much it is holding.
• How many beds, plantings, plants and notes the garden holds. Counts only.
• Errors and warnings the app wrote to the browser's console during the sitting.
• Your browser's language and time zone, and whether it said it was online.
• The last forty things you did, by kind only: that plants were placed or removed, that a bed was moved. Never what they were.
• What you wrote about what went wrong and the steps that got you there.
• The exact consent sentence you saw, and a version number for it.

A report can carry the names of beds and crops where the app was showing them, and nothing else of your garden: no notes, no dates of anything planted, no positions. Your whole garden goes only as the save file below, and only if you tick it. Your IP address is not stored with a report. A report is kept until the problem it describes has been dealt with and nothing still depends on it, and then it is deleted.

Your save file, only if you tick it

The card has a separate tick, off unless you turn it on, to send your garden as a save file with the report. That file is your whole garden: every bed, plant, note and date, and the ZIP code you gave the app for frost dates. The tick's own sentence says so before you tick it. The file is stored on the same account as the report, is used only to reproduce the problem you reported, and is deleted once that is done. If that deletion is somehow missed, the storage removes the file itself 90 days after it arrived. It is never shared and never used for anything else.

What is kept when you send test answers from the Broadfork Beta

The Broadfork Beta opens on a page that asks for your email address, and its Testing card asks you to try one thing at a time and say whether it worked. Nothing is sent unless you press Send on a page of the plan, or Submit on its last step, which sends every page with something not yet sent. The card shows you every line before you do. For each page sent, this is what is written down:

• The email address you gave on that first page, in lower case. It tells your answers apart from other testers' and lets Broadfork write to you about them. It is kept apart from the mailing list and does not sign you up.
• The date and time it arrived, and the time you pressed Send or Submit.
• Which page of the plan it was, whether it was that page's first send, which build of the app it came from, and which version of its storage.
• For each step you answered or changed: the step's words as you read them, your Pass or Fail, and your reason or your own words.
• For each Fail, what the app was showing when you pressed it: the screen, the year the map was showing, the number of the bed you had selected and of any planting you were placing, the last sentence the app's top bar showed you, your browser as it names itself and your screen size, the errors the app had seen, and the last forty things you did, by kind only.
• Your page notes: how it felt, what works and what does not.
• The exact consent sentence you saw, and a version number for it.

After a page's first send, only what you change goes, and an answer the same as the last one kept is not written again. A changed answer is kept beside the earlier one, so what you said first and what you said after are both on the record. Your IP address is not stored with your answers. Your save file goes only if you tick it, and is kept and deleted as a problem report's is.

Answers are kept only from an address on the Broadfork Beta's list; any other address is refused and the answers stay in your browser. Your answers are kept until every issue they raise has been dealt with and nothing still depends on them, and then they are deleted.

Signing in to the Broadfork Beta

The Broadfork Beta, at beta.broadfork.app, is a build of the app for the few people invited to test it. It is not open to everyone, so it asks for your email address and sends a one-time code to it. Cloudflare, who already serve this site, run that sign-in. When you use it, this is what is kept:

• Your address, on the list of people invited. It was given to Broadfork to let you in, and it comes off that list when the Beta closes or when you ask.
• A log of each sign-in: your address, the time, the IP address it came from and the country that address is in. Broadfork can read that log, and Cloudflare deletes each line of it after 24 hours.
• One cookie on the Beta's address, which is what keeps you signed in. It expires after a week, when the sign-in asks for a new code, and does nothing else.

The app is open to anyone at try.broadfork.app, with no sign-in, and nothing in this section is kept there. Family and friends may be given a second address for that same demo, broadfork-showcase.pages.dev, which has no sign-in either: no address, no sign-in log and no cookie. Signing up in the demo puts you on this list, which keeps exactly what the signup section above lists.

The garden you make in the Beta or the demo is kept in your browser, on your own machine. None of it reaches Broadfork unless you send a problem report or your test answers, and then only what the sections above list.

A guide can show your frost dates from a ZIP you type. The ZIP stays in your browser, which remembers it until you empty the box. Looking it up loads one small file named for the ZIP's first three digits, which the host sees as it sees any page you open, and Broadfork keeps nothing about it.

What is not kept

There are no cookies on this site, apart from the Beta's sign-in cookie above. There is no tracking pixel and no advertising, and the visit counter described below sets no cookie. The typeface and the pictures are served from this domain. Your IP address is not stored with a signup or a report and is not part of the list; the Beta's sign-in log is the one place it is kept, for 24 hours.

What is loaded from elsewhere

Two small scripts, both made by Cloudflare, who already serve this site. Nothing else is fetched from anywhere but Broadfork's own addresses.

The first is a check that keeps automated signups out, called Turnstile, on every Broadfork signup form. Whenever a signup form is on your screen, here or in the app, it loads a small script from challenges.cloudflare.com, and it loads at no other time.

It looks at how the browser behaves, things like timing and how the page was loaded, to tell a person from a script. Most visitors never see it and are never asked to do anything. Cloudflare states that it does not use what it collects for advertising and does not track people across sites.

It is there for a plain reason: without it, anything can post to the signup form as fast as it likes, and a list full of fake addresses is worse than no list.

The second is a visit counter, Cloudflare Web Analytics. Every page of this site loads it from static.cloudflareinsights.com. It reports which page was opened, the site whose link brought you here, your country, the kind of browser and device, and how quickly the page loaded. Cloudflare states that it sets no cookie, stores nothing in your browser and does not fingerprint visitors. Broadfork reads it only as totals, such as how many people opened the tour in a week and which sites sent them. It is not in the app, at any of its addresses.

The site is served by Cloudflare, and like any host they see the ordinary details of a request, including the IP address it came from, and use them to deliver the page and to block attacks. That is their handling rather than a record kept here.

What the address is used for

An email when Broadfork opens, and occasional email after that. That is what the form says. There is no schedule and there is no newsletter; it means the handful of things worth telling you about. Nothing is sent from this site today, because nothing that sends mail has been built yet.

Your address is not sold, rented, traded, or handed to anyone for their own use. If a service is ever hired to deliver this mail, it will be delivering it and nothing else, and it will not be free to use the list for anything.

Where it is kept

In a database run by Cloudflare on behalf of Broadfork, on servers in the eastern United States. They hold it; they do not get to use it.

How long it is kept

Until the launch email has gone out and you have had a reasonable chance to act on it, or until you ask for it to be removed, whichever comes first. If the app is never released, the list is deleted rather than kept in case it becomes useful.

Getting off the list

Every email carries an unsubscribe link, and that link is the whole process. One click, a page confirming which address it is about, and you are off. No sign in, no account, no reason asked for, and nobody reads it on the way past.

The link is built and working before the first email goes out rather than after, so leaving is never harder than arriving.

If a link ever fails you, support@broadfork.app reaches a person who will do it by hand.

Asking for it to be deleted

Coming off the list and being deleted are different things, so they are kept apart here. Unsubscribing marks your row as gone and keeps it, which is what stops you being added back by accident later. Deletion removes it.

You can ask what is held about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted outright. Write to support@broadfork.app. Whichever you ask for is what will happen, and deleted means removed from the database rather than marked as gone.

Children

This site is not aimed at children and the signup is not meant for anyone under 13. If an address belonging to a child has been added, write to the address above and it will be removed.

If this page changes

The date below is the last time it did. A change that affects an address already on the list will be described in the launch email rather than made quietly.

Who to write to

support@broadfork.app reaches a person. Broadfork is a one person shop in Ohio, so the person is the one who built it.

Last changed 12 November 2026.