LEGAL
Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 26, 2026
This is the privacy policy, in plain words. Your file has two readers: you, and the archive that keeps it. That is the whole arrangement. Read the section you came for; the headings say which. Below: what goes in the file, what never does, who else touches the machinery that stores it, and how to have it deleted. Nothing here is marketing. It is the seal, the promise of two readers, written down.
WHAT GOES IN THE FILE
Only what you put there:
- ▪Email address: Given during the quiz or account creation. Used to let you in and to write to you.
- ▪Quiz responses: Your answers to the pattern quiz. They name your primary pattern, the one that runs loudest, and shape what the Reading Room, your private reading space, shows you.
- ▪Payment information: Handled by Stripe. The full card number never reaches this archive and is never stored here.
- ▪Pocket Archivist conversations: What you tell it. Kept so the conversation can hold its thread. Free access starts each day clean, which means the Archivist stops reading earlier days back to you, but the messages stay in your file until you ask for them to be deleted.
- ▪Reading progress: Where you stopped, so the file opens where you left it.
- ▪Pattern logs: Interrupts you log, activations you track. Entered by you, kept in your account.
- ▪Pattern identification data: Your primary pattern, the second patterns behind it, and your scores. They tune the Reading Room and the Pocket Archivist, the chat held to the method, to your file.
WHAT NEVER GOES IN
- ▪No profile built from your movement across other websites. Any measurement that runs here counts what happens here: which pages load, which steps complete, which door you came through. It does not follow you out.
- ▪No selling of data. To anyone. Ever.
- ▪No use of your content for advertising. Your answers, your logs, your conversations: none of it becomes ad material or ad targeting.
- ▪No sharing of your pattern data with anyone. Not with ad platforms, not with analytics tools, not with anyone. Your pattern stays in the file.
- ▪No training of AI models on your conversations.
One exception, stated plainly: when you talk to the Pocket Archivist, your messages go to Anthropic to write the reply. With them go the pattern it is working on, which tier you are on, and how many interrupts you have logged and across how many sessions. On the Complete Archive, the all-nine-files tier, your quiz scores go too. Your quiz answers, your email address and your reading progress do not. Nothing is sold. Nothing goes anywhere else.
The file keeps two readers. Any counter at the door sees numbers, never the file.
THE FIELD RECORD
Sometimes, after you close a "Right now" conversation with the Pocket Archivist, one question appears: did you catch it before it ran? If you answer yes, one more follows: did it stop there? You can answer or skip. Skipping costs nothing, and a skipped question is never asked again sooner.
- ▪What is kept: Your answers, the pattern they were about, and the day. They are kept with your account, like the rest of your file. There is no box to type in, so nothing you write is kept.
- ▪How often it asks: Never the first time, at most once a day, and then not again for two days. To keep to that, the file also keeps the day you were last asked.
- ▪Dates: The day only. No time of day is stored anywhere.
- ▪What leaves the file: Counts only. How many answers there were, for each pattern, in each month. Your account is not in them.
- ▪Small counts: Any count under 10 is left out entirely. It is not shown as a small number.
- ▪Deletion: Ask for your account to be deleted, as described below, and your answers are deleted with it. Counts already published are not recalculated, because they hold no trace of you.
- ▪Language: The question is asked in English only.
WHAT THE FILE IS USED FOR
- ▪Authentication: Confirming it is you before the file opens.
- ▪Content delivery: Showing you the material that matches your pattern and your purchases.
- ▪The Pocket Archivist: Answering from your file instead of from nothing.
- ▪Progress: Holding your place and your completed sections.
- ▪Transactional email: Purchase confirmations and account notices. Nothing dressed up as a favor.
COOKIES
Two kinds. The cookie that keeps you signed in, and, when measurement tools are live, the cookies that count what the funnel does: which pages load, where the quiz stops, when a purchase completes. Counting cookies see events. They never see the file.
- ▪auth_token: Confirms your Reading Room access. Expires after 7 days.
- ▪quiz_auth_token: Stored in your browser after quiz completion so the Reading Room recognizes you.
- ▪Measurement cookies: Set only if analytics tools are active, under names like _ga or _ttp. They carry a random identifier and event counts. Never your quiz answers, never your pattern, never a conversation.
THE MACHINERY
The archive runs on infrastructure other people build. Each one touches only its own part, under its own privacy policy:
- ▪Stripe: Payment processing. Card details never stored here.
- ▪Anthropic (Claude): Powers the Pocket Archivist, and screens letters left in Unsent. Your messages, and any letter you leave there, are sent to their service to write the replies or to check the letter, under Anthropic's data handling policies.
- ▪Resend: Delivers the sign-in links and transactional email.
- ▪Supabase: Holds the database.
- ▪Vercel: Hosts the site.
- ▪Measurement, when active: Tools in this category, such as Google Analytics and the TikTok pixel, count traffic, funnel steps, and which ad produced a purchase. They receive events, never the file: no quiz answers, no pattern names, no conversations. An email address reaches an ad platform only as a one-way cryptographic hash, and only to match a completed purchase to the ad that brought it.
Every tool on this list touches its own part and nothing more. The pattern work itself, what you answer, what you log, what you say to the Pocket Archivist, is never measurement material.
UNSENT, THE LETTERS ROOM
Unsent is a room on this site at /letters/unsent. You can leave a letter there that you never sent. It asks for no name, no email and no account.
- ▪What is kept: Only a letter that passes screening. The room keeps its text after names, places, handles and contact details are taken out. It keeps who the letter was to, someone or yourself, and the day it went up. Nothing else.
- ▪What is not kept: A letter that does not pass screening is not stored in any form. A letter that shows a risk of harm is not stored either. You see crisis lines instead.
- ▪How it is screened: A fixed word list reads it first. Then it is sent to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude model. Their model checks it for risk and takes out details that could identify someone. That check is used for your letter and nothing else.
- ▪Limits on sending: To stop floods, the room counts how often one connection sends. The count uses a scrambled code made from your network address. The address itself is never stored, and the counts are deleted after one day.
- ▪Letters are public: A letter that passes screening can be read by anyone. To have one removed, email the address below with the date shown on it.
The Annex, the public wing with three rooms, is different: it keeps nothing at all.
STORAGE AND SECURITY
The file lives in a PostgreSQL database. Connections to it are encrypted. Credentials are hashed, which means stored scrambled, one way. Reasonable measures protect it, and honesty requires this sentence: no system is perfectly secure.
YOUR RIGHTS OVER THE FILE
It is your file. You can:
- ▪Request a copy of everything in it.
- ▪Request deletion of your account and everything attached to it.
- ▪Correct anything inaccurate.
- ▪Opt out of any email that is not a receipt or a sign-in link.
Email archivist@thearchivistmethod.com for any of the above.
CHILDREN
The Archivist Method is not for anyone under 18. No information is knowingly collected from minors.
CHANGES
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Continued use means you accept the current version.
CONTACT
Questions about the seal: archivist@thearchivistmethod.com