Depth · Trust
Trust and security
Depth reads your code to write questions about it. This page says exactly what it reads, where that goes, what it keeps and for how long, who sees what, and how to leave. If anything here is unclear, write to team@acadable.com and you'll get a plain answer.
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Read-only on your code
The GitHub App reads your repositories. It writes only its own check on pull requests and, if you allow it, one reminder comment to an author.
Code is never stored
Code is read to write or review a question, then discarded. A question that shows code keeps its short excerpt for 14 days at most.
Answers stay with the engineer
Only the engineer sees their answers and feedback. Managers see module status and counts.
Yours to take back
Uninstall and Depth stops reading at once. Ask, and we delete everything.
What Depth reads, and when
When you install it, on the repositories you choose: the file tree, and each recent commit's author, date and the paths it touched. That is what the first, estimated map is drawn from. It also reads a CODEOWNERS file to name modules, and a .mailmap to recognise people's commit emails, if you have them. Depth keeps the paths and authors, never file contents.
After a merge, or a push to your default branch: that change's diff, up to a dozen of the files it touches, and the pull request's title, description and linked issues. They go to the model that writes the questions, inside one step of a background job, and are discarded when the step ends.
When an answer is reviewed: only the files that question is about, read and discarded the same way.
For a Handover Pack: the code of the modules being handed over, while the brief and walkthrough are written. Only the prose and its line references are kept.
For merge guard: which files a pull request touches, to show how well those modules are understood. Paths only.
What Depth keeps, and for how long
| What | Includes | Kept |
|---|---|---|
| Your team | Names, GitHub usernames, sign-in emails, roles | While you're a customer |
| Commit history | Authors, their emails, dates, file paths. No code. | While the repository is connected |
| The map | Modules, their paths, daily status and counts | While you're a customer |
| Questions | Text, rubric and line references. A short code excerpt for questions that show code. | Questions while you're a customer; excerpts 14 days at most |
| Answers | What an engineer wrote, then the feedback and evidence (module, strength, date) | Written answers 90 days; evidence while they work with you, plus 30 days |
| Handovers | Handover session answers; briefs and walkthroughs as prose and line references | Written answers 90 days; briefs while you're a customer |
| Audit log | Changes to your workspace and who made them | While you're a customer |
| Billing | Plan, seats and payment references. Card details stay with Razorpay. | As tax law requires |
Who sees what
The engineer sees their own answers, feedback and scores, and what a manager would see about them if they left.
Managers and admins see the map, module status and counts, and reports. Never an individual's answers or scores. The one disclosed exception: during a handover, whether each successor is “covered” or “not yet” on a module, and that person sees it too.
Acadable sees the counts and metadata needed to run the service: teams, usage, billing. Never answers or scores. Only named operators, by GitHub account, can open that view.
Our terms forbid using Depth to evaluate, rank, discipline or pay anyone.
Where it goes
| Service | What for | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting, database and background jobs | Everything Depth keeps |
| Anthropic | Writing questions and feedback (the Claude API) | The change being asked about, and the answer being reviewed. Anthropic's commercial terms don't allow training models on it. |
| GitHub | Your code, and signing in | Nothing it doesn't already have |
| Slack, if you connect it | Delivering check-ins | Each question and its feedback, to the engineer asked |
| Razorpay | Payments | Billing contact and payment. Card details never reach Depth. |
How it's protected
- Least privilege on GitHub: contents, metadata, pull requests and issues read-only; checks write, for merge guard; pull requests write only for the author reminder, and only if you approve it.
- GitHub and Slack tokens are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM).
- Only a hash of each session token is stored; session cookies are HttpOnly, Secure and SameSite.
- Every webhook from GitHub, Slack and Razorpay is signature-checked, and every input is validated before use.
- Every query is scoped to one team: no team can reach another's data.
- A strict content security policy, and no third-party scripts in the product.
- HTTPS everywhere. Dependencies are installed only once they've been public for 7 days, and audited.
Compliance and paperwork
SOC 2: not yet. We'll begin the audit when a customer's security review needs it, and say so on this page.
Data processing agreement: we sign our standard DPA on request, for the GDPR and India's DPDP Act. Write to team@acadable.com.
Security questionnaires: send yours to team@acadable.com and we'll fill it in.
Works councils: no individual scores reach managers, and the terms forbid evaluating people with Depth. We're glad to join that conversation.
The public tools
The bus factor scan reads a public repository's commit metadata and publishes an estimated map anyone with the link can see. Trying Depth on a public pull request keeps the questions, and each visitor's answer and feedback, for 30 days. For daily limits we keep a hash of the visitor's address, salted with the day, so it can't be reversed or followed from one day to the next.
Leaving
Uninstall the GitHub App and Depth stops reading anything at once. Export your map and report any time (Report → CSV). Ask us to delete everything, and we will: the team, its people, history, questions, answers and evidence. Write to team@acadable.com.
Reporting a security issue
Email team@acadable.com with “Security” in the subject. Please give us a chance to fix it before telling others; we'll tell you what we found and when it's fixed.