Terms of Service

Article 1 - Purpose and scope

These Terms of Use govern the use of the BrickNote desktop application (macOS, Windows) and of the bricknote.ai website, published by APITHINGS, a French SARL registered with the Lyon trade register under number 890 251 184, registered office 4 rue de la République, 69001 Lyon, France.

BrickNote is professional software. It is intended for construction-coordination professionals acting in the course of their business, and is not offered to consumers.

BrickNote is currently distributed as a public beta (article 3). In that setting there is no order and no signed contract: the application presents these Terms on first launch and does not open until you accept them. The full text is shown there, you can save a copy before accepting, and the application keeps on your computer the version accepted, the language, the date and the software version. Absent that acceptance — if you obtain the application some other way — installing or using it constitutes acceptance of the Terms in the version published on that date. Where a purchase order, licence agreement or convention is signed between APITHINGS and the user, that document prevails over these Terms for everything it covers, and these Terms apply to the rest.

Article 2 - Description of the service

BrickNote is an application installed on the user’s own computer, intended for construction-coordination professionals (OPC, execution project management, site managers). It provides:

• Indexing and reading of a project folder as it exists on the computer (reports, drawings, schedules, contracts, minutes, emails, photos, scans, action register)
• Worksheets that answer a question while citing their sources
• An action register in which every proposed change is validated by a person
• Drafting of follow-ups and meeting reports, issued as PDF
• Recording and transcription of a site meeting
• Optional connection to the firm’s Microsoft 365 mailbox, to collect a project’s messages and send from that mailbox
• Operation with the AI model provider the user chooses, or with a local model

A mobile capture companion is under consideration; it is not distributed at this date and is not part of what is licensed. These Terms will be completed if it is.

Article 3 - Licence

APITHINGS grants the user a right to use BrickNote Desktop that is personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-sublicensable, limited to the number of seats and the term agreed at the order, and to the internal needs of the user’s professional activity. The licence transfers no intellectual property rights.

Offers and continuity

In versions offering “one free active project”, an unlicensed profile can manage one active real project at a time. Examples do not count. An archived project remains readable and exportable; reactivation requires an available slot. No reactivation delay is imposed.

A multiple-project licence may be agreed separately in writing. It is named, verified offline through a signed file, with no hardware lock; the permitted number of seats is agreed on the order. Licences stating “ongoing use, updates included” have no usage expiry or automatic renewal. They guarantee neither a release schedule nor perpetual compatibility with third-party systems and providers. The file may be imported on a replacement computer within the agreed seat count; resale and sharing with third parties remain prohibited.

The public beta

BrickNote is currently distributed as a free public beta, without commitment. During that period:

• The application is provided “as is”, experimentally, without warranty of any kind (article 11). It does not yet have the operational history of established software.
• No support is guaranteed. A feedback channel is open and read, with no promised response time.
• The model provider is yours: the beta includes no artificial-intelligence model supplied by APITHINGS, and APITHINGS bears no inference cost (article 4).
• The application updates itself (article 10); the release rhythm is not guaranteed.
• BrickNote is intended to become paid software: the beta will end. Its end is announced at least two months in advance, in the release notes and on bricknote.ai. An installed version does not stop working as a result; only later updates may be subject to a licence. APITHINGS may otherwise change or restrict the beta’s features at any time.

Free use never converts automatically into a paid subscription: no payment method is requested, no charge is possible, and any move to a paid licence requires your new written agreement.

In consequence, you are to keep your previous working method running in parallel during the beta, so that a defect in the application cannot put a meeting report or a site deadline at risk.

The user shall not rent, lend, resell or make the software available to third parties, nor modify, decompile or reverse-engineer it, save for the rights granted by article L. 122-6-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code. The bricknote.ai website is freely accessible.

Article 4 - Prerequisites and third-party services

The user is responsible for a compatible computer, an internet connection and their cost. BrickNote’s artificial intelligence relies on a model provider the user chooses, configures and pays directly (Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, OpenRouter), or on a local model (Ollama); connecting to Microsoft 365 requires the user’s own account. OpenRouter does not run the model itself: it forwards each request to a provider it selects from those it lists, which the user does not designate and whose place of processing is not established; BrickNote attaches to every call a request that the data be neither retained nor used for training, which remains a request and not a contractual undertaking. APITHINGS is not a party to the contracts concluded with those third parties, receives no remuneration for them, and guarantees neither their availability, nor their terms, nor where they process data — which the user is to verify with them.

Article 5 - No account

Using BrickNote requires no BrickNote account: APITHINGS asks for no email address and no password. Third-party credentials (model provider, Microsoft 365) are the user’s own, kept on their computer, under their responsibility.

Article 6 - User obligations

The user undertakes to:

• Use the application in accordance with its purpose and with the law
• Inform the people present and obtain their agreement before recording any meeting — in France, article 226-1 of the Criminal Code; elsewhere, the rules of the place the meeting is held, which may be stricter — following the information notice supplied with the application
• Comply, as the controller of their projects’ data, with GDPR obligations towards the people appearing in them — information, retention periods, handling of rights requests
• Check any content produced with the help of AI before issuing it, signing it, or acting on it
• Keep their computer secure (individual session, screen lock, disk encryption) and back up their folders
• Not attempt to circumvent the application’s protections
• Respect third parties’ intellectual property rights

Article 7 - The user’s data and documents

Project folders, worksheets, registers, reports and recordings stay on the user’s computer. APITHINGS has no access to them, holds no copy of them, and acquires no rights over them — not to reuse them, not to show them, not to train a model.

The documents in a project folder may belong to third parties (the architect’s drawings, an engineering firm’s studies, photographs, the client’s own documents). These Terms change nothing about the ownership of those rights: the user is responsible for the permissions their use requires.

If the user voluntarily sends documents to APITHINGS to obtain support, they are used only to handle that request, disclosed to no one, and deleted when the request is closed.

For more information, see our Privacy Policy.

Article 8 - Artificial intelligence

The application uses artificial-intelligence models to draft worksheets, read scanned pages, extract commitments, transcribe meetings and propose register updates. The user is informed that they are interacting with an AI system, and the documents produced with its help say so.

AI results are proposals: no proposal changes the register, and no message is sent, until the user validates it. They must be checked before any use; they are neither technical advice, nor legal advice, nor an adversarial finding. APITHINGS does not warrant the accuracy, completeness or currency of generated content, which depends on the model the user chose, its configuration and the documents in the folder.

An issued report carries the SHA-256 hash of its frozen content. That hash lets anyone verify a document has not been altered; it is neither an electronic signature nor a certified timestamp, and proves neither the date nor the sending.

Article 9 - Intellectual property

The BrickNote application, its interface, code, documentation and graphic elements are and remain the exclusive property of APITHINGS. Any unauthorised reproduction, modification or distribution is prohibited.

The names, trade marks and logos “BrickNote” and “APITHINGS” remain the property of APITHINGS; “BrickNote” is a filed trade mark. The licence grants no right over them. The user shall not use the BrickNote trade mark to designate another product or service, or in any way likely to cause confusion as to the origin of the software.

The application includes third-party components, in particular open-source libraries, which remain governed by their own licences; the list of those components and their licences ships with the application (menu “Third-party licences”) and is provided on request. The AI models and third-party services the user relies on belong to their respective publishers.

APITHINGS may cite the user’s name or trade mark as a commercial reference only with their prior written agreement.

Article 10 - Updates and changes

The application checks for an update at launch and every six hours, and downloads available updates automatically. The user chooses when to install; failing that, a downloaded update installs when the application is closed. Updates may fix security vulnerabilities: users are advised not to defer them.

APITHINGS may change the application’s features. Substantial changes are described in the release notes. APITHINGS owes no maintenance or support obligation beyond what the agreement or purchase order provides.

Article 11 - Warranty and liability

During the public beta (article 3), the application is provided “as is”, with no warranty of conformity, availability, continuity or fitness for a particular purpose, and no obligation to fix within any given time. The paragraphs below apply in every case.

Outside the beta, APITHINGS undertakes to supply an application conforming to its documentation and uses reasonable efforts to keep it working. It does not warrant that the application will be error-free, that it will meet any particular need, or that any given result will be achieved. Third-party services (model providers, Microsoft 365, website hosting) are governed by their own terms and warranties.

The user remains solely responsible for the reports, follow-ups, decisions and commitments they issue, for their accuracy and their consequences, and for backing up their computer.

Indirect damages are excluded, in particular loss of data, loss of business, loss of opportunity, commercial or reputational harm, and third-party claims arising from them.

Save for personal injury, gross negligence and wilful misconduct, which French law does not allow to be capped, APITHINGS’ total liability, on any basis whatsoever, is limited to the greater of: the sums actually received from the user over the twelve months preceding the triggering event, or five thousand (5,000) euros. This cap is agreed in consideration of the licence price — nil where applicable — and of the division of roles set out in articles 6 to 8.

Article 12 - Confidentiality

Each party keeps confidential the other’s information it accesses in connection with the licence, for its term and three years thereafter. This does not apply to information that is public, already known, or whose disclosure is required by law or by an authority.

APITHINGS does not access the user’s folders, remotely or otherwise. Screen sharing or sending documents for support happens only at the user’s request, under their control, and on the terms of article 7.

Article 13 - Personal data

For the data contained in project folders, the user is the controller: it stays on their computer and APITHINGS does not access it, so APITHINGS does not act as a processor in that respect. If, in a particular case, APITHINGS were to process personal data on the user’s behalf — support on real documents, a model account supplied by APITHINGS — a processing agreement compliant with article 28 GDPR would be concluded beforehand.

The processing for which APITHINGS is the controller is described in the Privacy Policy.

Article 14 - Term, termination and exit

The licence is granted for the agreed term. Either party may terminate for a material breach by the other not remedied within thirty days of formal notice. During the public beta, article 3 prevails over this one: the end of the beta is announced two months in advance, and it obliges you neither to uninstall nor to stop using the version you installed — you keep the right to use it as it stands, without updates or support. APITHINGS can withdraw that right only for a material breach on your part.

On termination, the user stops using the application and uninstalls it. Their data stays with them: project folders, their documents and issued reports are files on their own computer, readable without BrickNote — there is nothing to hand back, nothing to retrieve, and nothing that becomes inaccessible.

Article 15 - Force majeure

Neither party is liable for a failure caused by force majeure within the meaning of article 1218 of the French Civil Code, including the lasting unavailability of an indispensable third-party service.

Article 16 - Changes to these Terms

APITHINGS may change these Terms. The version applicable to a current licence is the one accepted at the order; a substantial change is notified to the user and applies only on renewal, or after one month’s notice during which the user may terminate at no cost if they do not accept it. For the website, the version in force is the one published.

Article 17 - Assignment

The user consents in advance to the assignment of this contract by APITHINGS to a company taking over the operation of BrickNote, in particular by way of sale or contribution, provided that it assumes all contractual obligations in full. The assignment, recorded in writing, becomes enforceable against the user upon written notice of the deed specifying the assignee, its contact details and the effective date. The user expressly agrees to release APITHINGS for the future; obligations and liabilities arising before the effective date remain with APITHINGS. The assignment changes neither the price, nor the term, nor the agreed rights of use. Subject to mandatory rules, the user may not assign the contract without APITHINGS’s written consent.

Article 18 - Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by French law. The parties will seek an amicable solution; failing that, and only so far as article 48 of the French Code of Civil Procedure allows — that is, between commerçants — any dispute falls to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Lyon, France, including where there are several defendants or a third-party claim. Where that condition is not met, in particular if the user practises in a non-commercial form, the ordinary rules of jurisdiction apply.

Article 19 - Contact

For any question about these Terms, contact us through our contact form.