Legal & policies
Plain terms for an honest, alpha-stage network.
Kikapu runs tenant workloads on community-donated Linux nodes. This page states what that means for you — what we promise (little), what we don't (a lot), and where the boundaries sit. No fine-print games.
The short version
A plain-language summary. It does not replace the full sections and documents below.
⚠ Alpha software
Provided as-is, no warranty. Nothing here is a production-readiness or availability promise.
◆ Host can see your data
A node owner with root sees everything their node runs. Never deploy secrets you wouldn't hand them.
✓ No tracking
This public site uses no analytics, marketing cookies, or local storage.
◇ Open source
MIT-licensed. Read, audit, and run the code yourself.
Acceptable Use Policy
v1.0Every deployment manifest must carry the exact acknowledgement aup: v1.0 or admission fails. By deploying you agree to the following.
Do not submit secrets you won't disclose to the node owner. Environment values, files, and data are visible to node-owner root. Treat every deployment as readable by the person hosting it.
No unlawful, harmful, or abusive workloads. No content or activity that is illegal, that attacks the network, other tenants, or the wider internet, or that harms the machines volunteering capacity.
Do not attempt to target, deanonymize, or select nodes. Placement is the scheduler's job. Requests cannot name a node, address, or host port, and you must not try to circumvent that or the tenant-isolation boundaries.
Node owners set the terms of their machines. Owners choose which workload classes they accept and may drain or quarantine any workload at any time. Withdrawal may stop your workload and release its node-local storage.
Trust & security boundary
This is the most important sentence on the page: tenant isolation is real; confidentiality from node-owner root is not.
A node owner with host root can inspect
- → workload processes
- → storage & files
- → environment values
- → signed desired-state cache
- → Podman state
Tenants are isolated from each other and the host is protected from tenants — not the other way around. Keep external backups: /data is node-local and may be lost when a node withdraws. There is no confidential-compute claim.
Privacy
This website
This public site uses no analytics, no marketing cookies, and no local storage. We do not build a profile of you for visiting.
The platform
When you use or operate a Kikapu control plane, it stores the operational data needed to run deployments:
- ·Account and tenant identity, and node metadata.
- ·Deployment manifests and lifecycle status.
- ·Workload logs (retained 168h by default) and events (kept as an audit trail).
- ·Economy ledger entries, where the compute-unit economy is enabled.
Raw API keys are shown once and stored only as a bcrypt hash — never logged. Environment values can be envelope-encrypted at rest. Remember that deployment data is visible to the node owner regardless of at-rest encryption on the central plane. Privacy requests: [email protected].
Read the full privacy noticeDisclaimer & no warranty
Kikapu is alpha-stage infrastructure. There is no marketplace, availability, durability, or confidential-compute promise. The software is provided "as is", without warranties of any kind, express or implied. No command, example, or figure in the Book is a production-readiness claim.
You are responsible for evaluating fitness for your use, for your own backups, and for compliance with laws applicable to your workloads and to the machines you operate or donate.
These pages describe the current public Kikapu surface. They are not global compliance certification or legal advice. Counsel review remains required before commercial launch, marketplace activation, jurisdiction-specific commitments, or new personal-data collection.
Read the full alpha termsOpen source & license
Kikapu is MIT-licensed and written in Go. The module path is github.com/isnakolah/kikapu. You are free to read, audit, run, and fork the code under the MIT terms.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software…
Changes & contact
We may update these policies as Kikapu evolves. Material changes will be noted here with a new updated date. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated terms.
Contact
Questions or requests: [email protected]
Community
Join the Discord for questions and updates.