Terms of Service
Last updated 21 September 2026
CortexNotch is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. You buy a licence to use the software on your own Macs. This page explains what you get, what you may do with it, and the limits of what is promised.
1. Who you are contracting with
CortexNotch ("we", "us") is operated by a sole proprietor based in Texas, United States. You can reach us at support@cortexnotch.com.
Payments are processed by Stripe, acting as merchant of record through its Link service. Stripe is the seller of record for the transaction, collects and remits applicable sales tax and VAT, and appears on your card statement and receipt. Your purchase is therefore also subject to Stripe's and Link's terms for the payment itself.
2. What you receive
On purchase you receive a licence key that activates the CortexNotch macOS application, a download link for the application, and optional access to the private Cortex Stack repository.
| Item | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Licence key | Activates CortexNotch on up to 2 Macs that you own or control. |
| Updates | Every release in the 1.x series, at no further cost. |
| Cortex Stack | Read access to the private template repository, tied to one GitHub account. |
| Support | Email support on a best-effort basis. We are a one-person operation and do not promise a response time. |
3. Licence grant
We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use CortexNotch for your own purposes, personal or commercial, on the number of machines stated above.
You may
- Use CortexNotch on your own hardware, including for work.
- Modify the Cortex Stack configuration in your own private copy of the repository.
- Move your licence between machines you own by deactivating one and activating another.
You may not
- Share, resell, sublicense, rent or publish your licence key or the application binary.
- Republish the Cortex Stack repository publicly, in whole or in substantial part.
- Remove or circumvent licensing, attribution or security mechanisms.
- Use the software to break the law, or to operate infrastructure you are not authorised to access.
4. Ownership
We keep all intellectual property rights in CortexNotch, the Cortex Stack templates, the name and the branding. You keep everything you create with it: your cluster, your configuration, your notes and your data are yours alone, and we neither receive nor store them.
5. Price, tax and payment
The price is $35 USD, once. Sales tax or VAT is added at checkout based on your billing address and is calculated, collected and remitted by Stripe as merchant of record. The total you are charged may therefore exceed $35.
We never see or store your card details. Payment information is handled entirely by Stripe.
6. Refunds
Thirty days, no questions asked. The full terms, including what happens to your licence and repository access, are on the refund policy page.
7. Third-party software
The Cortex Stack installs and orchestrates third-party open-source components, including Kubernetes (k3d), Flux, Ollama, Open WebUI, Whisper, Piper and SearXNG. Those components are licensed by their own authors under their own terms. We do not grant you rights to them and are not responsible for them. Models you download through Ollama carry their own licences, which you are responsible for reviewing.
8. Your responsibilities
CortexNotch runs a Kubernetes cluster and AI services on your machine. You are responsible for your hardware, your backups, your network security, and for having enough disk and memory. Running out of disk during an image pull can disrupt containers and local clusters, so the installer checks free space before it starts.
9. Warranty disclaimer
CortexNotch is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the software will be uninterrupted, error-free, or compatible with every Mac, macOS version or cluster configuration.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
10. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability arising out of or relating to CortexNotch is limited to the amount you paid for your licence.
We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, nor for lost profits, lost data, corrupted clusters, or business interruption, even if advised that such damages were possible.
Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.
11. Termination
Your licence ends if you materially breach these terms — for example by sharing or reselling your key — or if your purchase is refunded or charged back. On termination your licence key is deactivated and any Cortex Stack repository access is withdrawn.
12. Changes to the software and to these terms
We may change CortexNotch and may update these terms. If we make a material change we will update the date at the top of this page. Changes do not apply retroactively to a purchase you have already made: the terms you agreed to at the time of purchase continue to govern that licence.
13. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If you are a consumer resident in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you keep the benefit of any mandatory consumer protections of your country of residence, and nothing here removes your right to bring proceedings there.
14. Contact
Questions about these terms: support@cortexnotch.com.