Terms and privacy.

The short version.

AI Me.

What it is

AI Me is a chatbot that answers questions about software architecture, technology and my experience. It searches notes and posts I've written, then passes the relevant parts and your question to a large language model (currently Anthropic's Claude), which writes the answer. It's a personal experiment provided free of charge, as is, and it may change, break or disappear at any time.

It isn't professional advice

AI Me is not a professional consultancy service, and using it doesn't create any client, consulting, contractual or professional relationship with me. Nothing it says is architecture, engineering, security, legal, financial, compliance or any other professional advice. It knows nothing about your systems, your organisation, your constraints or your risks, so it can't tell you what's right for you. If you need advice you can rely on, hire a qualified professional who can look at your situation properly.

Check the facts before you use anything it says

Language models make mistakes, and they make them confidently. AI Me can and will:

• state things that are wrong, out of date or made up;
• misread or misquote the notes and posts it draws on;
• cite a source that doesn't actually support what it said;
• give different answers to the same question;
• miss security, legal, cost or performance implications;
• suggest code or configuration that doesn't work or isn't safe.

Don't act on anything AI Me says without checking it yourself against official documentation and other reliable sources. Never paste its code or commands into a production system, or make a business, technical or purchasing decision based on its answers, without independent review and testing. You use its output entirely at your own risk.

It doesn't represent my opinions

AI Me speaks in the first person and is built from my writing, but it isn't me, and I don't review its answers. Nothing it says is a statement, opinion, recommendation, endorsement or promise by me, Daniel Hall, or by any employer, client or organisation I'm connected with. If it describes my experience, views or past work, treat that as a summary that may be inaccurate. Where it conflicts with something I've written or said myself, what I wrote or said wins. Please don't quote AI Me as me.

I can't be held responsible for what it says

To the fullest extent permitted by law, I accept no responsibility or liability for anything AI Me says, for any errors or omissions in its answers, or for any loss, damage, cost or claim arising from your use of, or reliance on, AI Me or its output. That includes direct, indirect and consequential loss, loss of profit, data, revenue or business, and any outage, security incident or failed project. You're responsible for how you use what it gives you.

What not to type into it

Your questions are sent to third-party services to be answered (see Privacy). Don't enter passwords, API keys, tokens or other secrets, personal data about yourself or anyone else, or confidential information about your employer, clients or systems. Describe your situation in general terms instead.

Using it fairly

Please don't:

• try to make it ignore its instructions, reveal its prompt, or say things that are harmful, unlawful, defamatory or misleading;
• use it to impersonate me, or present its answers as things I said or endorsed;
• automate requests to it, scrape it, or get around the human check or rate limits;
• use it for anything illegal, or to harm or harass anyone.

It's rate limited, and I may block or withdraw access at any time without notice.

Tools.

The developer tools run entirely in your browser: what you paste into them isn't sent to this site's server. Each tool says so on its page. They're provided free and as is. I try to make them correct, but I don't guarantee that any result is accurate or fit for your purpose, so check anything that matters (a subnet, a cron expression, a security header) before you rely on it.

Writing and other content.

Posts, notes and pages here are my personal views at the time I wrote them. They aren't the views of any employer or client, and they aren't professional advice for your situation. Technology moves quickly, so some of it will be out of date. Links to other sites are there for convenience: I don't control them and I'm not responsible for their content.

Unless I say otherwise, the writing, design and content on this site are mine and protected by copyright. You're welcome to quote short extracts with a link back. Code snippets in posts are free to use, at your own risk.

Liability.

The whole site, including AI Me and the tools, is provided free, “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including accuracy, reliability, availability or fitness for a particular purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, I'm not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of the site or your reliance on anything on it.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes any liability that can't be limited or excluded by law, such as liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. If you're a consumer, these terms don't affect your statutory rights.

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute.

Privacy.

I'm Daniel Hall, and I'm responsible for the personal data this site handles. I collect as little as I can, I don't sell it, and I don't use it for advertising.

Visiting the site

The site runs on Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes your IP address and basic request details (pages requested, browser, time) to serve the site and protect it from abuse, and keeps short-lived logs that I can use to fix problems. I use Cloudflare Web Analytics (opens in a new tab) to count visits. It doesn't use cookies or fingerprint you, and I only see totals. Images are served from Sanity's CDN, which also sees your IP address when it sends them.

The contact form

When you use the contact form, your name, email address and message are emailed to my personal inbox (Gmail) so I can reply. I keep them for as long as I need to follow up, then delete them. Your details aren't added to a mailing list or shared with anyone else.

AI Me

When you ask AI Me a question:

• your question and the conversation so far are sent to the site's server, then to Cloudflare AI Search (to find relevant notes) and, through Cloudflare AI Gateway, to Anthropic (to write the answer);
• Anthropic processes them under its commercial terms and privacy policy (opens in a new tab); Cloudflare may keep request logs, which can include what you typed, for a limited time for monitoring and debugging;
• the site itself doesn't save your conversations to a database. The conversation lives in your browser tab and is gone when you reload or leave the page;
• your IP address is used briefly to limit how many questions can be asked per minute.

This is why you shouldn't type personal or confidential information into AI Me.

The human check

The contact form and AI Me use Cloudflare Turnstile (opens in a new tab) to tell people from bots. Turnstile looks at signals from your browser to do this, without showing you a puzzle in most cases.

Who else processes data

• Cloudflare (opens in a new tab): hosting, analytics, Turnstile, AI Search and AI Gateway.
• Anthropic (opens in a new tab): writing AI Me's answers.
• Google (opens in a new tab): Gmail, which receives contact form messages.
• Sanity (opens in a new tab): the content platform and image CDN.

Some of these providers process data outside the UK, under their own safeguards for international transfers.

Why I'm allowed to

I rely on legitimate interests to run, secure and understand use of the site and AI Me, and to reply to messages you send me.

Cookies and storage.

There are no advertising or tracking cookies. The site uses:

All of them are strictly necessary for the human check or for signing in, so there's no consent banner. Nothing is stored in your browser for analytics or advertising.

Your rights.

Under UK data protection law you can ask to see the personal data I hold about you, have it corrected or deleted, object to how I use it, or restrict it. In practice, the only personal data I hold is contact form messages in my inbox. Get in touch and I'll deal with your request within a month. If you're unhappy with how I've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (opens in a new tab).

Changes and contact.

I may update these terms as the site changes. The date at the top says when they last changed, and using the site after a change means you accept the new version. Questions about any of this? Send me a message.