Barel
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Terms of Service

Last updated: 20 October 2026

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Asymmetrical Ltd (“we”, “us”). They govern your use of the Barel website, Mac app, browser extension, early access and Founder programmes, and related materials (together, the “Services”).

By using the site, asking for or redeeming an invite, downloading the software, or using a licence key, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

Who we are

Asymmetrical Ltd is a private limited company registered in England and Wales (company number 12500207). Registered office: 12 Constance Street, London, England, E16 2DQ. Barel is our product. We also operate ascii.studio as our development studio. These Terms cover Barel only, not separate studio client contracts.

Questions: hi@barel.ai

What Barel is

Barel (formerly ModelCaddy) is local-first software: a Mac app and a free browser extension that capture AI sessions and keep memory on your device. It is not a hosted cloud service for your chats or Vault. We do not store or process the contents of your captures on our servers, except where you choose to send something (for example in-app feedback).

Barel Free covers the extension and the Mac Vault viewer, with no licence key and no required account. Barel Pro unlocks on-device intelligence (including Ask Barel, digests, semantic search, context packs, local MCP, and backup/restore as we ship them). Feature lists on the site describe current intent; pre-1.0 software can change.

You own the files Barel stores on your Mac. We claim no intellectual property in your captures, notes, or memory. Keep backups — local software cannot recover a disk you lose.

Licence

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to install and use the Mac app and extension on computers you own or control, for your own purposes (including your work). We remain the owner of the software. This is a licence, not a sale of the code.

You may not:

A Pro key is for you alone: the person who bought it, or the person we issued it to. Each key works on one Mac at a time. To move it, turn Pro off on the old Mac first, or ask us to free it. It is not a site-wide or team licence unless we sell that separately. Sharing keys is not allowed.

Getting Barel Pro

Barel is invite-only for now. Nothing is for sale at the moment. Purchases are paused. You can get Barel Pro only as described in “Invites and referral rewards” below. We will update these Terms before purchases reopen.

Invites and referral rewards

Download for Mac. On barel.ai you can ask for Barel with your email. The first 1,000 different email addresses get the download link and a Barel Pro key for 1 month by email. After that, new addresses join a waitlist, and we email you once to say you are on it.

Invite codes. You can also join with an invite code: a personal code from another Barel user, or a promo code from us. Promo codes may have a limited number of uses or an end date. Once a code is used up or has ended, it no longer works. You enter the code and your email, and we email you a link. The link works for 3 days. When you open it, your email is verified and we issue you a Barel Pro key for 3 months.

One invite key per person. You get one invite key per inbox, however many times you ask and however many codes you use. A later request or code shows you the same key, with the same end date. We treat addresses that reach the same inbox as one person (for example name+tag@…, or Gmail addresses that differ only by dots).

Time-limited Pro. A 1-month or 3-month key is free and ends on the date shown on the page and in the email with your key. After that date the key no longer turns Pro on, and Barel goes back to Barel Free. Your Vault and the files on your Mac stay.

Referral reward. Once you have verified your email in the app, you get your own code. When 3 friends join with it and verify their email, we issue you a new key: Barel Pro for life, with 1 year of updates included from the day we issue it. Like a purchased licence, it has no end date. Pro keeps working on versions released within that year. For later versions you will need to renew, once renewals are available. A friend counts only if they verify their own email and have not joined with a code or verified their email with us before. Your own email does not count. There is one referral reward per person.

Keys are personal. Each key works on one Mac at a time. Invite codes, invite keys and referral rewards have no cash value. You cannot sell, swap or transfer them, and we do not exchange them for money or other credit.

Fair use. Do not use fake, throwaway or duplicate inboxes, scripts or other automated sign-ups, or anyone else's email to get keys or earn rewards. If we reasonably think you have, we may refuse a join, withhold a reward, or revoke the keys and rewards that came from it.

We may change the programme. We may change or end downloads by email, invites, promo codes or the referral programme for the future. A key we have already issued keeps its terms, unless it came from abuse of the programme or you otherwise break these Terms.

Past purchases

If you bought Pro before purchases were paused, nothing changes for you. The terms you bought under still apply. This section and “Refunds” repeat them.

You paid once, in euros. Checkout was provided by Paddle, who was the merchant of record. Your payment is also subject to Paddle's checkout buyer terms. Paddle handled tax, invoices, and payment-method charges. We never received your full card number.

We emailed your licence key to the address used at checkout. Keep the key safe. If you lose it, email us and we will reissue it to the original purchaser. We may ask you to prove the purchase.

Your purchase includes 12 months of app updates from the purchase date. After that window, Pro keeps working on the last version you were eligible for. You will not receive newer versions until you renew. Renewing is optional. There is no subscription and no automatic billing. A purchased key has no end date.

Founding and early-access prices were promotional. A future price does not alter a licence you already paid for.

Refunds

Purchases made before purchases were paused keep their 14-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. Contact us or Paddle within 14 days of purchase. A refund removes Pro access; Barel Free, your Vault, and files on your Mac stay. Refunds are processed by Paddle to the original payment method.

Invite and referral keys are free, so there is nothing to refund.

If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms takes away rights you have under UK (or, if applicable, EU) consumer law that cannot be excluded.

Your email and early access

There are no public accounts on this site at the moment. Your email is how we know you: we send your links and keys to it. You are responsible for keeping that inbox and your keys secure. Tell us if you think someone else has access.

Waitlist, roadmap, and Founder-edition signups are optional. Founder spots, when we offer them, may include Pro capability without a purchase, in exchange for using pre-release builds and giving feedback. We may accept or decline Founder applications. Beta and early builds can be incomplete, change, or break. Do not rely on them as your only copy of important work.

Barel is in active development. We may add, change, or withdraw features before or after v1.0. We will not take away a Pro key you already have before its end date (or, for a key with no end date, at all) except as these Terms allow (for example a refund, abuse of the invite programme, or if you seriously misuse the Services).

Your data and feedback

You are responsible for what you capture and store, including material that is confidential or that belongs to someone else. Use the software only on content you have the right to process.

If you send feedback, ideas, or screenshots, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free licence to use them to operate and improve Barel. You still own your feedback; this is not a transfer of your Vault. Do not send secrets you do not want us to see.

Our use of personal data is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of how we operate the Services.

Third-party tools

Barel works alongside services we do not control — including Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Cursor, the Chrome Web Store, GitHub, and others. Their terms and privacy policies apply to your use of those products. Capture and continuation features depend on those sites continuing to work in a way we can support; we do not guarantee any third-party service.

During the invite launch the browser extension is a download from GitHub, not a Chrome Web Store listing. You install it yourself, using Chrome's developer mode. Chrome may warn you about extensions installed this way.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

Intellectual property

Barel, the name, marks, website content, and software (other than open-source components under their own licences) belong to Asymmetrical Ltd and its licensors. These Terms do not give you any right in our brands except to identify the software you licensed.

Disclaimer

The Services are provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the software is error-free, that local data cannot be lost, or that it will integrate with every AI tool forever.

If you are a consumer in the UK, we do not exclude the statutory quality rights that apply to digital content.

Limitation of liability

We do not exclude or limit liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or anything else that cannot be limited under English law.

Subject to that: we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive losses, or for lost profits, lost data, or business interruption, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), or otherwise, even if we were told they were possible.

Our total liability arising out of the Services is limited to the amount you paid us for Pro in the twelve months before the claim (or £50 if you have not paid us). This cap does not apply where the law says it cannot.

Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Services at any time and delete the app and extension. We may suspend or end access to the website, a licence, or an account if you materially breach these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if we discontinue Barel. If we discontinue the paid product we will, where reasonable, give notice on the site. Local files on your Mac remain yours.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. The date at the top will change. Continued use of the website or software after a change means you accept the new Terms, except where the law requires a different process. For a licence you already bought, changes will not reduce the 12-month update window or the 14-day refund window that applied at purchase. For a key from an invite or referral, changes will not bring its end date forward or shorten its updates window.

General

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction, except that if you are a consumer you may also bring proceedings in the courts of your place of residence where the law gives you that right.

If a provision is unenforceable, the rest still applies. We may assign these Terms (for example in a sale of the business); you may not assign your licence without our consent, except that you may transfer a purchased Pro licence together with the Mac it is used on if the buyer agrees to these Terms — contact us so we can reissue the key. Invite and referral keys cannot be transferred.

These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and (for past purchases) the checkout terms presented at purchase are the entire agreement for the Services. They supersede prior discussions about Barel.

Contact

Asymmetrical Ltd
12 Constance Street, London, England, E16 2DQ
hi@barel.ai · Support · Privacy Policy