Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-06-06

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of SpecStep ("the Service"), operated at specstep.com. SpecStep is owned and operated by No Compromise AI, a Delaware corporation (www.nocompromise.ai) ("we", "us", "our"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Plain-language summary

This summary is a non-binding overview. The full terms below control.

• You can use SpecStep to generate documentation packages for your software projects.
• You retain all rights to the packages you generate. We do not claim ownership of your inputs or outputs.
• Don't use SpecStep to generate content that's illegal, harmful, infringes someone else's rights, or attacks the Service itself.
• The Service is provided "as is." Generated packages are starting points, not legal or compliance guarantees.
• SpecStep uses credits as the unit of generation, consumed per review depth (Fast = 1, Normal = 2, Extensive = 4). The Free tier includes one lifetime Fast credit; paid tiers (Pro, Team, Enterprise) and one-off packages provide additional credits. Some paid options become available for purchase when payment processing is enabled — the Pricing page shows what is currently purchasable.
• You can connect external storage (OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive), authorize third-party tools via MCP OAuth, use your own LLM API keys, and push output to source-control repositories. When you use these integrations you take on responsibility for your credentials, your connected accounts, and any costs those providers charge you.
• You can export your data at any time and delete your account at any time. Deletion is processed within 24 hours; a default 30-day soft-delete window applies (configurable in Settings).
• Disputes are resolved by binding individual arbitration with a class-action waiver. You may opt out within 30 days of first accepting these Terms (Section 14.1).

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to use the Service. If you are using the Service on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you represent that you have authority to bind that entity to these Terms. One human or machine identity per account; do not share credentials.

3. Accounts

Sign-in is delegated to a third-party identity provider (Google, GitHub, or Microsoft). You are responsible for maintaining the security of the underlying provider account. Notify us at hello@specstep.com if you suspect unauthorized access. We may disable accounts engaged in abuse, fraud, or violations of these Terms; affected users are notified at the email on file.

You may also generate API keys and MCP OAuth tokens that grant access to the Service on your behalf. You are responsible for the security of those credentials. Any action taken by a third-party tool or integration using credentials you issued is deemed to be your action. Revoke compromised credentials immediately via Settings → API Keys or Settings → Connected Apps. We are not liable for unauthorized use of credentials you have not revoked.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service to generate content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, obscene, infringing, or that depicts the sexual abuse of minors.
• Generate content intended to facilitate harm to people, property, infrastructure, or animals.
• Attempt to reverse-engineer the Service, bypass quotas, scrape rate-limited endpoints, or interfere with other users' access.
• Submit content for which you do not hold the necessary rights, or that violates the rights of others (intellectual property, privacy, publicity).
• Submit personal information about identifiable third parties without lawful basis to do so.
• Use the Service to develop a competing product, train an LLM on our outputs, or systematically extract our prompts, rubrics, or templates.
• Use the Service in connection with high-risk activities where failure could cause death, personal injury, or severe environmental damage (e.g., life-support, nuclear facilities, critical infrastructure control).

5. Your content and our content

5.1 Your content

"Your Content" means all data, content, and materials you submit to, transmit through, or generate as input to the Service, including: interview answers and session responses; reference documents; source-control configuration; role assignments; external connector authorizations and any file contents transiently accessed through them to fulfill a generation request; outbound webhook endpoint URLs; support tickets, contact-form messages, and other communications you send through the Service's support, feedback, and contact flows; structured feedback you provide about Generated Output (including rubric scores, quality ratings, structured findings, typed observations, and evidence text); screenshots, screen recordings, and diagnostic payloads you attach to support or feedback submissions; auto-filed diagnostic reports generated from your session on your behalf; and any other data or content you provide to us.

You retain all rights to Your Content. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, process, transmit, and display Your Content solely for the following purposes: (a) operating and delivering the Service to you; (b) transiently reading file contents from external storage you authorize to fulfill a generation request; (c) committing Generated Output files to source-control repositories you configure; (d) dispatching webhook payloads to endpoint URLs you configure; (e) providing support and responding to your support tickets and contact-form messages, including sharing relevant excerpts with our support staff; (f) triaging, reproducing, and resolving issues you report, including quality issues you raise through the feedback flow; and (g) improving the quality, accuracy, and reliability of the Service, including by using your structured feedback, rubric scores, and quality ratings as signals for our quality-evaluation systems. We do not use Your Content to train large language models.

5.2 Generated packages

The documentation packages produced by the Service ("Generated Output") belong to you. We do not claim ownership of Generated Output. You are responsible for reviewing Generated Output before relying on it. Generated Output is produced in part by large language models, which may produce inaccurate, biased, or incomplete results.

5.3 Our IP

The SpecStep platform, the Web UI, the REST API, the MCP server, the agent prompts, the rubrics, the templates, and the brand are our intellectual property. You receive a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service per these Terms. Nothing in these Terms grants you any other rights in our intellectual property.

5.4 AI-Generated Output: Limitations, Customer Validation Duty, and No Warranty of Fitness

6. Credits, subscriptions, and billing

6.1 Credits

SpecStep uses credits as the unit of generation. Each generation consumes credits based on the review depth you select: Fast (1 credit), Normal (2 credits), and Extensive (4 credits). The Researcher capability is a separate metered dimension and is not denominated in credits. Migrated packages (packages you import from a previous tool or account) do not consume credits.

6.2 Tiers and purchases

The current tiers, their monthly credit allotments, per-seat limits, and prices are described on the Pricing page, which is the authoritative source for what is currently available. In summary:

• Free: no charge; includes a one-time lifetime allotment of one (1) Fast credit. The Free allotment is issued once per account and is not renewed monthly.
• Pro, Team, and Enterprise subscriptions, and one-off a-la-carte packages: these provide additional credits and are described on the Pricing page. They become available for purchase when payment processing is enabled; until then, the Service indicates which tiers and packages are currently purchasable. Sign-in is required to purchase one-off packages.

We reserve the right to add, modify, or discontinue tiers, prices, and credit allotments with reasonable advance notice to active paid subscribers. The Preview-period pricing provisions in Section 9.5.2(d) also apply.

6.3 Credit terms

• Monthly credits; no rollover: for subscription tiers that include a monthly credit allotment, credits are issued at the start of each billing period and expire at the end of that period. Unused monthly credits do not roll over.
• One-off packages and top-up credit packs: purchased separately from a subscription. Any expiration of purchased credits, and the scope of what a purchase includes, are disclosed at the point of purchase. Sign-in is required.
• No refunds: subscription fees and purchased credits (including one-off packages and top-up packs) are non-refundable except where required by applicable law. We may, at our discretion, offer credit adjustments for documented service outages.
• Downgrade and cancellation: if you downgrade to a lower tier or to Free, any credits in excess of the new tier's allotment are forfeited at the end of the current billing period. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you retain access until then and are not entitled to a refund of credits already consumed.
• Failed payments: if a charge fails, we may downgrade you to the Free tier or suspend the account after a reasonable grace period, and credits provisioned during the failed-payment period may be reclaimed.
• Account deletion: on account deletion, any remaining credits (subscription allotment or purchased packs) are forfeited and no refund is issued.

6.4 Billing mechanics

• Billing: paid subscriptions are billed in advance through Stripe. By starting a paid subscription, you authorize recurring charges on your selected payment method until you cancel.
• Automatic state changes: your subscription status (active, past due, canceled, downgraded) is updated automatically in response to events reported by Stripe, including payment failure, card expiry, and dispute. You are responsible for monitoring your billing status in Settings → Billing. SpecStep is not liable for loss of access or features resulting from Stripe-initiated state changes.
• Tax: prices do not include applicable taxes; you are responsible for any taxes that apply in your jurisdiction.
• Bring-your-own LLM costs: if you configure your own LLM provider API key (Section 8.5.3), you are solely responsible for all costs your key incurs with that provider. SpecStep has no responsibility for your LLM provider billing.

7. Free tier

The Free tier is provided as a courtesy and includes a one-time lifetime allotment of one (1) Fast credit (Section 6.2); it is not a renewing monthly allotment. The Free tier may change or be discontinued with reasonable notice. We reserve the right to apply additional rate limits or content restrictions to the Free tier.

8. LLM provider terms

The Service routes Your Content to the large language model providers supported by the Service from time to time (the current list is maintained in the product and in our Privacy Policy) to produce Generated Output. Your use of the Service is also subject to the applicable provider's acceptable use policy. We pass through generation requests; we do not modify Your Content beyond redacting obvious secrets before transmission.

If you configure a bring-your-own API key (Section 8.5.3), Your Content is routed through that key and your use remains subject to the applicable provider's acceptable use policy. You are solely responsible for your account standing with that provider and for any costs your key incurs.

8.5 Third-party integrations and credentials

9. Service level

We aim for high availability but make no formal uptime commitment for any tier. We may perform maintenance with reasonable advance notice and unscheduled emergency maintenance without notice. We are not liable for delays caused by upstream providers (LLM APIs, identity providers, DNS, payment processors, external storage providers, source-control platforms, third-party developer tools).

9.1 Force majeure

SpecStep is not liable for any delay or failure to perform any obligation under these Terms (other than payment obligations) to the extent the delay or failure is caused by circumstances beyond SpecStep's reasonable control, including: acts of God, natural disaster, war, terrorism, civil unrest, governmental action, cyberattack or denial-of-service attack by a third party, fire, flood, pandemic, labor dispute, failure of third-party infrastructure or services (including LLM provider APIs, OAuth identity providers, payment processors, cloud-infrastructure providers, and external storage platforms), or internet-service disruption. SpecStep will use commercially reasonable efforts to mitigate the effects of any such event and to resume normal service as soon as reasonably practicable. If such an event continues for more than sixty (60) days, either party may terminate the affected subscription by written notice to the other, with a pro-rata refund of prepaid subscription fees for the period after the termination date, notwithstanding Section 6's general no-refund policy.

9.5 Preview Edition

10. Termination and data deletion

You may delete your account at any time by submitting a deletion request via Settings → Delete Account (which calls /v1/users/me/deletion-request). Account deletion is processed within 24 hours of your request. On deletion, SpecStep cascades deletion to your generations, packages, interviews, reference documents, external connector authorizations, API keys, and MCP OAuth tokens.

Your Content is subject to soft-deletion and will be permanently purged from our systems within the retention window configured in your Settings (default: 30 days). You are responsible for setting a retention window appropriate for your use case before requesting deletion. You may export Your Content before deletion using the data export feature at Settings → Export My Data; exports are made available as a signed download link valid for 7 days.

If applicable law grants you the right to access, correct, delete, or port Your Content (including the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act, and similar laws), you may exercise those rights via the data export and deletion features described above, or by contacting us at hello@specstep.com.

We will retain an audit record of your deletion request (but not Your Content) for the period required for legal, accounting, and fraud-prevention purposes.

We may suspend or terminate your account if you materially violate these Terms, if your subscription becomes delinquent, if your identity provider revokes our access, or if we are required to do so by law. We will provide notice of suspension or termination to the email address on your account unless we are prohibited from doing so by law or the violation involves fraud, illegal activity, or abuse.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

12. Limitation of liability

13. Indemnification

13.1 Your indemnification of SpecStep

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless SpecStep, its affiliates, officers, employees, and agents from and against any claims, damages, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from:

• (i) Your Content;
• (ii) your use of the Service in violation of these Terms or applicable law;
• (iii) your infringement of any third-party intellectual property, privacy, or publicity right;
• (iv) your breach of any representation or warranty you make under Section 8.5 (including unauthorized exposure of files through an external connector, unauthorized use of a third-party tool via MCP OAuth, use of an LLM API key in violation of the provider's terms, or unauthorized source-control delivery); or
• (v) any action taken by a third-party tool or integration using credentials, tokens, or access you authorized.

13.2 SpecStep's indemnification of you

SpecStep will defend you against any third-party claim alleging that the SpecStep platform itself (the web application, REST API, MCP server, agent framework, or brand, as delivered by SpecStep) directly infringes a third party's patent, copyright, trademark, or trade secret, and will indemnify you for damages, costs, and reasonable attorneys' fees finally awarded in such a claim (or settlement amounts SpecStep approves in writing), provided that you: (a) promptly notify SpecStep in writing of the claim; (b) grant SpecStep sole control of the defense and settlement, subject to reasonable cooperation you provide at SpecStep's expense; and (c) do not make any admission or settlement without SpecStep's prior written consent. This obligation does not apply to claims arising from: (i) Your Content or the content of any Generated Output; (ii) your modification of the Service or combination of the Service with products or services not supplied by SpecStep, where the claim would not have arisen but for that modification or combination; (iii) your use of the Service after SpecStep notifies you to stop to avoid an infringement claim; (iv) your use of the Service in violation of these Terms or applicable law; or (v) any third-party integrations described in Section 8.5 (which are provided by and governed by the relevant third-party providers). SpecStep's obligations under this Section 13.2 are subject to the limitation of liability in Section 12, except as provided in Section 12's carve-out for indemnification obligations.

14. Governing law and disputes

14.1 Binding arbitration and class-action waiver

14.2 Governing law and court jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. SpecStep is incorporated in the State of Delaware; this governing-law selection reflects our principal place of business and operations and is not altered by the state of incorporation. For any dispute not subject to arbitration under Section 14.1 (including disputes by users who have opted out, and the equitable-relief exceptions in Section 14.1.5), the dispute will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Travis County, Texas, and you waive any objection to venue in those courts. If you reside in a jurisdiction with mandatory consumer-protection rules that override this clause, those rules apply to the extent required by law.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the current version. When we publish a material change, we update an internal version stamp; the Service will then prompt you to re-accept the updated Terms on your next authenticated visit. Continued use of the Service after the re-acceptance prompt is shown constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. We may also notify you of changes by email at the address on your account, at our discretion.

16. Miscellaneous

• Entire agreement: these Terms together with the Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement between you and SpecStep regarding the Service, including your use of all integrations described in Section 8.5. No separate integration-specific agreement governs your use of third-party connectors, MCP OAuth, bring-your-own API keys, or webhook features unless expressly agreed in writing.
• Feedback and support content license: the license you grant us over Your Content in Section 5.1 covers all support tickets, contact-form messages, structured feedback, quality ratings, rubric scores, findings, evidence, and diagnostic payloads you submit; no separate feedback license is needed for those. If you separately provide unsolicited product suggestions or feature requests outside those flows, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use and incorporate that input into the Service, for any purpose related to operating and improving the Service (excluding training third-party large language models), without obligation or attribution to you.
• Severability: if any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect.
• Waiver: our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
• Assignment: you may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• Notices: legal notices to us must be sent to hello@specstep.com. Notices to you may be sent to the email address on your account.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms: hello@specstep.com. SpecStep is operated by No Compromise AI, a Delaware corporation — learn more at www.nocompromise.ai. Legal notices must be sent to hello@specstep.com and are effective upon receipt.