Privacy, AI and your files

Cadence has no account system, telemetry or advertising. AI is optional and uses your own provider account.

Local by default

Your library, compositions, practice history and MIDI takes are stored in Cadence's Application Support folder. Microphone audio is analysed locally for pitch and is not uploaded by the tuner or singing activities.

The app opens books through the file chooser. It does not scan Downloads for books. This website does not load analytics, third-party fonts or tracking scripts.

When you use AI

Add your OpenRouter key in Settings → AI coach. The key is stored in macOS Keychain, not the score library or a source file. Do not paste keys into issues or shared screenshots.

When you explicitly request coaching, analysis, a course draft or transcription, the selected context is sent to OpenRouter and its chosen model provider. PDF transcription sends the selected page for each request. Review the context and page selection before sending.

Requests require zero-data-retention routing, deny provider data collection and disable automatic provider fallbacks. Those are request constraints; provider availability and policy compliance remain external dependencies. A model without a compatible route can fail rather than falling back.

Provider charges use your account. Set a spending limit there. Cancelling a request does not guarantee that a provider will not charge for work already received. Cadence does not automatically retry paid requests.

Back up and recover

Use Open data folder when a storage warning appears, or locate Cadence in ~/Library/Application Support/Cadence. Quit the app before making or restoring a complete folder backup. Keep the source PDFs/EPUBs and the saved JSON files together.

Failed writes preserve the previous snapshot. Unreadable or newer-format data is not overwritten. Do not delete a warning file just to dismiss an error. Completed unsaved takes and some received-but-unsaved AI replies remain in memory only: save or export them before quitting.

Your music and the project license

The app's license does not claim ownership of your compositions or grant rights to redistribute someone else's books. Cadence code is AGPL-3.0-or-later; authored documentation and artwork are CC BY-SA 4.0. Bundled libraries and samples keep their own licenses.

For a security concern, use the repository's private vulnerability reporting channel. Do not put a private score, key or practice history in a public issue.