What we collect, and why.
Ascent holds the strategy work you and your clients create. This page explains what we store, where it goes, and what we never do with it. Pair with the terms of service for the full picture.
What we store
Account basics (email, name) via Clerk, and the content you create in the app: engagements, client records, the strategic house, AI-readiness assessment responses, and the recommended actions / synthesis generated from them. It lives in our Neon Postgres database, scoped to your account.
AI processing — Anthropic
Ascent uses Anthropic Claude (via the official API) to synthesise assessments into a strategic narrative and recommended actions in your firm's voice. We send the relevant engagement content for that task; Anthropic processes it and doesn't train on it per their commercial terms.
Where it's hosted
The app runs on Vercel; your data lives in Neon. Auth/session data is held by Clerk.
Who we share data with
Ascent relies on a small set of third-party services to operate. Your data may be processed by the following providers, solely for the purposes described above:
- Clerk — authentication, session management, and account profile storage.
- Anthropic — AI synthesis of assessments and recommended actions (data sent per-request via their commercial API; not used for model training).
- Vercel — application hosting, edge rendering, and serverless function execution.
- Neon — managed Postgres database where engagement and account data is stored at rest.
We do not sell, rent, or otherwise disclose user data to any party not listed above.
How we protect your data
We use industry-standard measures to keep your information safe:
- Encryption in transit — all connections use TLS 1.2 or higher; plain-text HTTP is never accepted.
- Encryption at rest — database storage is encrypted with AES-256 via the database provider (Neon).
- OAuth token security — authentication tokens and credentials are managed entirely by Clerk and are never stored in Ascent's own database.
- Access controls — all API routes and data access require authenticated sessions scoped to your account.
How long we keep things
- Account + engagement data — until you delete your account.
- AI prompts + responses — sent to Anthropic per-request; we don't log the request bodies on our side.
Your rights
Request export or deletion of your data at any time — email hello@ascent.build and we'll come back within 30 days.
What we don't do
- Sell your data. Ever.
- Show ads.
- Train AI models on your data — neither us nor Anthropic (per their commercial API terms).
- Drop third-party tracking cookies or fingerprint across sites.
Children
Ascent isn't designed for users under 16 and we don't knowingly collect their data.
Changes to this policy
We'll update this page when we change a third-party service or a data category; material changes are flagged via email.
Contact
Privacy questions or data requests: hello@ascent.build.
Last updated: 11 June 2026