CLI Telemetry
What the vibecarbon CLI collects, what it never collects, and how to turn it off.
The vibecarbon CLI collects a small amount of anonymous usage data to help us
understand adoption and fix bugs. This page lists every field, verbatim.
The update check is not telemetry
Once a day the CLI asks vibecarbon.com/api/v1/cli/version for the latest
released version so it can tell you when an update is available. That request
carries no body, no identifiers, and no cookies — the server learns
nothing about you. It runs even if you opt out of analytics (set CI=true or
uninstall to stop it entirely).
What is collected
Anonymous usage events, one per command run:
| Field |
Example |
Notes |
machine_id |
random UUID |
generated once, stored in ~/.vibecarbon; not derived from your hardware, hostname, or account |
project_id |
random UUID |
generated at vibecarbon create; null outside a project |
command |
deploy |
the command name only — never arguments |
cli_version |
0.41.0 |
|
node_version |
24.1 |
major.minor only |
platform / arch |
linux / x64 |
|
provider |
hetzner |
cloud provider from project config; null if none |
deploy_target |
k8s-ha |
compose, k8s, or k8s-ha — plus compose-ha (retired tier; still reported by older CLIs) |
If a command crashes, an error report adds: the error name, the error message
(truncated), a stack trace limited to vibecarbon's own code with paths
rewritten package-relative, and a fingerprint hash used to group duplicate
crashes. The CLI redacts home directories, IP addresses, and anything
token-shaped from the message and stack before sending — the server only
enforces size caps and field validation on what it receives.
What is never collected
Hostnames, project names, command arguments, environment variables, email
addresses, file contents, or anything derived from your hardware. Your IP
address is used transiently for rate limiting and is never stored alongside
your telemetry data — the ingest tables have no IP column. Standard
web-server access logs are covered by our
privacy policy. The server sets no cookies.
Raw telemetry rows are deleted after 12 months.
Turning it off
Any one of these disables analytics and error reports:
vibecarbon telemetry off # persistent, per machine
export DO_NOT_TRACK=1 # industry standard, respected as-is
export VIBECARBON_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1
vibecarbon telemetry status shows the current state. CI environments
(CI=true) are excluded automatically.