Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you ("Client," "you") and Kenji Fukuda, doing business as Quiet Forge ("Company," "we," "us"), a sole proprietorship operating from California, USA. By submitting a request, paying a deposit, or otherwise using Quiet Forge's services, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not submit a request or make a payment.

1. Services

Quiet Forge provides fixed-scope software and website development services in the tiers, turnarounds, and pricing published on our Services & Pricing page at the time you request a quote. Each tier's stated scope (the "Fits" description on that page) defines what is included — work that substantially exceeds that scope is treated as a new or supplemental request, priced and agreed separately, not silently absorbed into the original order. Requests that don't fit a published tier receive a human-prepared custom quote instead.

2. Quotes, Deposits & Payment

• Standard tiers receive an instant quote; Custom-tier requests receive a human-prepared quote by email.
• Projects are split 50% deposit to start, 50% due on delivery, regardless of tier. Work begins once the deposit clears.
• The final deliverable — source code handover, site cutover, or credential transfer — is withheld until the remaining 50% is paid in full.
• If final payment is not made within 14 days of delivery being ready, the project moves to a collections/close-out process and is not handed over unpaid or held open indefinitely.
• All payments are processed by Stripe. We do not store your full payment card details.

3. Revisions

Each tier includes a set number of revision rounds, stated on the Services & Pricing page, executed against the original request. Revision requests beyond the included rounds are treated as additional scope: we will not build them for free, and we will not simply refuse — you'll receive a supplemental quote for the extra round before any further work begins.

4. Post-Delivery Support Window

For 30 days after delivery (or until included revision rounds are exhausted, whichever comes first), the revision process above still applies. After that window, a new report is triaged as either a genuine defect in the original delivery (fixed at no charge) or new/changed requirements (a fast-tracked quote referencing your original request, priced at no less than the original tier price). This support window does not apply to clients on the "We Host It" add-on, whose plan already includes ongoing monitoring and minor fixes.

5. Cancellation & Refunds

• Before work has started (your project is still Queued or Quoted, no build has begun): full refund of your deposit, no questions asked.
• After work has started: your deposit is non-refundable by default — it covers development time already spent, not held pending delivery. A partial refund beyond that point is at our sole discretion.
• Every refund, whether full, partial, or declined, is logged internally regardless of amount.

6. Intellectual Property

Upon receipt of final payment, you own the delivered code or website outright as a work made for hire. We retain no ownership claim to your project-specific logic, content, or design. We do retain the right to reuse generic, non-client-specific boilerplate, scaffolding, or components written independently of your engagement, in other projects. Any third-party-licensed stock imagery, fonts, or assets used in a website deliverable remain governed by their original license terms — we are not able to grant, and do not grant, exclusive ownership of assets we do not own ourselves.

7. Acceptable Use & Your Responsibilities

• If your request involves accessing, scraping, or otherwise automating retrieval of data from a third-party website or service, you confirm that doing so is permitted by that target's own terms of service, and you are solely responsible for that determination. We may decline to build something you disclose is against a target site's terms.
• You are responsible for the legality and accuracy of any content, data, or credentials you provide us for use in your project.
• You will not use Quiet Forge's services to build anything unlawful, infringing, or intended to harass, defraud, or harm others.

8. AI Disclosure

Quiet Forge's development work is produced by an AI agent pipeline, with human oversight at defined review checkpoints before delivery. We disclose this upfront so it is never a surprise after the fact.

9. Data Handling

Information you submit — project details, contact information, and any content or data you provide for your build — is processed in part through Claude Code sessions (Anthropic's API) as part of how your project is built and reviewed. Quiet Forge currently accepts clients located in the United States only. See our Privacy Policy for more detail on what we collect and how it's used.

10. Hosting

Website hosting, whether for a site we built or one you brought yourself, is provided through my.quiet-forge.net and governed by that service's own Terms of Service and account system, not this document. An ongoing monthly allowance of minor edits or fixes beyond hosting itself is a separate, optional add-on, quoted individually and provided on a best-effort basis without an uptime guarantee or service-level agreement of any kind.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

Services and deliverables are provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that any delivered software or website will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fully secure against every possible vulnerability.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability arising out of or relating to any project is limited to the total amount you paid for that specific project. In no event will we be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, including lost profits or lost data, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations on liability, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any claim, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your provided content or data, your choice of any third-party target for scraping or integration work, or your use of a delivered project in violation of these Terms or applicable law.

14. Force Majeure

We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from causes outside our reasonable control, including outages of third-party services we depend on (such as payment processing, hosting, or AI infrastructure providers), internet or utility disruption, or other events beyond our control.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The version in effect at the time you submit a request governs that project. Material changes will be reflected by updating the "Last updated" date above.

16. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute not resolved informally will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state or federal courts located in Monterey County, California.

17. Miscellaneous

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full effect. These Terms, together with any specific quote or invoice, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding a given project.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms: support@quiet-forge.net.