Telemetry

NimbleBrain collects anonymous usage telemetry to improve the platform. Telemetry is on by default and can be disabled at any time. No personal data, conversation content, or file paths are ever sent.

What is collected

Telemetry events fall into four categories:

CLI events

Event	Properties
`cli.startup`	Mode (`serve`), connector count, startup time in ms

Agent loop events

Event	Properties
`agent.chat_started`	Whether a skill matched, tool count, whether this is a resumed conversation
`agent.chat_completed`	Iteration count, tool call count, stop reason (`complete`, `max_iterations`, `max_input_tokens`, `cancelled`), LLM latency, tool latency, total time, input/output token counts
`agent.error`	Error type name only (e.g., `AnthropicError`), structured error code if available

Connector lifecycle events

Event	Properties
`connector.installed`	Whether the connector has UI
`connector.uninstalled`	Source type

Web client events

Event	Properties
`web.page_view`	Automatic (PostHog JS), IP capture disabled
`web.chat_sent`	Whether this is a resumed conversation, whether an app context is set
`web.app_opened`	Whether the app has a primary view

What is never collected

Conversation content, messages, or prompts
File paths, working directories, or hostnames
Usernames, IP addresses, or email addresses
Connector names, skill names, or tool names
Tool arguments or results
Error messages or stack traces (only error type)
Model names (could reveal organization info)
Cost data (reveals pricing tier)

Identity model

On first run, NimbleBrain generates a random UUIDv4 and stores it at ~/.nimblebrain/.telemetry-id. This is the only identifier sent with events. It has no connection to any user identity.

The ID is scoped to the work directory. Running bun run dev (workDir = .nimblebrain) creates a different ID than bun run start (workDir = ~/.nimblebrain).

The web client uses a separate browser-scoped anonymous ID (generated by PostHog JS using in-memory persistence). Server and web events are correlated by a shared installId property.

How to opt out

Any one of these methods disables telemetry completely:

Config file
Environment variable

Add to nimblebrain.json:

{
  "telemetry": {
    "enabled": false
  }
}

export NB_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1

Or use the informal standard:

export DO_NOT_TRACK=1

Environment variables are checked first (no file I/O). If either is set, telemetry is off regardless of the config file.

Re-enabling telemetry

Telemetry is on by default. Remove the NB_TELEMETRY_DISABLED / DO_NOT_TRACK env vars and set telemetry.enabled: true (or drop the telemetry block) in nimblebrain.json.

Resetting your anonymous ID

To unlink future events from past events, delete ~/.nimblebrain/.telemetry-id. A new random ID is generated on the next run.

First-run notice

On first run, when the .telemetry-id file is created, NimbleBrain prints this notice to stderr:

NimbleBrain collects anonymous usage telemetry to improve the platform.
No personal data, conversation content, or file paths are ever sent.
Set NB_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 (or DO_NOT_TRACK=1) to disable.  Learn more: https://nimblebrain.ai/telemetry

This notice appears exactly once per work directory.

Technical details

Server-side SDK: posthog-node (batched, async, no native bindings)
Web client SDK: posthog-js with ip: false, autocapture: false, disable_session_recording: true, persistence: "memory"
Destination: PostHog Cloud (https://us.i.posthog.com)
Check order: Environment variables checked first, then config file
Offline behavior: Events silently dropped (no disk queue, no exceptions)

What’s next

Configuration: nimblebrain.json — full config reference including telemetry settings
Environment Variables — NB_TELEMETRY_DISABLED and DO_NOT_TRACK