Terms of Service — Recursive

Short version. Recursive is offered as-is, in active development, and without warranty. You can use it for personal work under the free tier, and for commercial work under a paid Commercial license. Supporter and Commercial license purchases are non-refundable. Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time to stop future renewals. You are responsible for anything you build or run with Recursive, including any third-party API calls it makes on your behalf.

1. Acceptance of terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Future In Detail LLC, a limited liability company organized in the State of New York ("we," "us," "our"). By downloading, installing, accessing, or using Recursive — whether the desktop application, the website at recursive.computer, or any related service — you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use Recursive.

2. The product

"Recursive" refers to the desktop application, the recursive.computer website, and the licensing and billing infrastructure that supports them. Recursive is an autonomous development environment that runs AI agents locally on your machine. Recursive calls out to AI providers (for example, Anthropic or OpenAI) using API keys you supply, and it can install and run plugins that you or third parties provide.

3. License grant

Subject to your compliance with these Terms and, where applicable, payment of fees, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use Recursive on the number of devices permitted by your license tier.

3.1 Free tier

The free tier permits personal, non-commercial use on a single device. "Personal use" means use by an individual for their own projects, learning, or experimentation. It does not include use by or on behalf of a company, organization, government, or paying client.

3.2 Paid tiers

Paid licenses grant additional rights as described on the pricing page:

Remote Access — an add-on subscription that permits a secure remote connection to your development machine. Billed monthly or annually through Stripe.
Supporter — an annual subscription that supports development and grants access to early builds and community perks. Does not convey commercial-use rights.
Commercial — a per-user annual license that grants the right to use Recursive for commercial work. Each user at a company requires their own Commercial license.

4. Beta software

Recursive is currently in beta. You acknowledge that beta software may contain bugs, change without notice, lose or corrupt data, or behave in ways its author did not intend. You should keep independent backups of any work you care about, use version control, and avoid using Recursive for workloads you cannot afford to lose or redo. We may add, remove, or change features at any time.

5. Your responsibilities

You are responsible for:

All activity that occurs under your license, including actions taken by agents and plugins running inside Recursive.
All API calls Recursive makes on your behalf to third parties, and any charges or consequences those calls incur.
Keeping your own API keys, license key, and account credentials secure.
Complying with all laws that apply to you and to the work you do with Recursive.
Complying with the terms of any third-party service you connect to Recursive (for example, Anthropic's Usage Policy, OpenAI's Terms, or a git host's acceptable use policy).

6. Plugins and third-party services

Recursive supports plugins that can execute code, read and write files, call third-party APIs, and otherwise act on your behalf. Plugins are software written by their respective authors. Except where we are the author, we do not endorse, audit, or guarantee plugins, and we are not responsible for what they do. You install and use plugins at your own risk.

When Recursive or a plugin calls a third-party service (for example, an AI model API), that service is governed by its own terms and privacy policy. You, not we, are the customer of that service, and you are solely responsible for any fees, rate limits, data handling, and compliance obligations that attach to it.

7. Fees, billing, and refunds

7.1 Payments

Paid licenses are sold in U.S. dollars and processed by Stripe. By purchasing, you authorize us and Stripe to charge the payment method you provide for the amount shown at checkout, including any applicable taxes.

7.2 Subscriptions

Subscription plans (for example, Remote Access, Supporter, and Commercial) renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current rate unless you cancel before the renewal date. You can cancel at any time through your Stripe customer portal; cancellation stops future billing but does not refund the current period.

7.3 Refunds

Supporter and Commercial licenses are non-refundable. Please make sure the product meets your needs before purchasing. Subscription plans can be cancelled at any time to prevent future renewals, but payments already made for the current term are non-refundable. We may, at our sole discretion, issue refunds in exceptional circumstances (for example, a clear billing error on our side), but we are not obligated to.

7.4 Failed payments

If a subscription payment fails, we will attempt to collect again. After repeated failures, the license associated with the subscription will be suspended until payment is restored.

8. License enforcement

Each paid license has a device limit as described on the pricing page. Recursive performs periodic license checks against our licensing server to verify that your license is valid and that the device-binding count is within the tier limit. We may suspend or revoke a license for clear abuse, including fraudulent payment, sharing a single license across an unreasonable number of devices, or circumventing license validation.

9. Intellectual property

Recursive, its name, logo, website, visual design, and underlying software are owned by Future In Detail LLC and its licensors, and are protected by intellectual-property laws. Nothing in these Terms transfers any ownership of Recursive to you. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

You retain all rights in the code, prompts, content, and other work you create using Recursive. We claim no ownership of and no license to your work.

10. Feedback

If you send us feedback, feature requests, or ideas about Recursive, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that feedback to improve the product, without any obligation to you.

11. Termination

You may stop using Recursive at any time. We may suspend or terminate your license, with or without notice, if you materially breach these Terms, if your payment fails and is not cured, or if we reasonably believe your use of Recursive exposes us or other users to legal or security risk. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16) will survive.

12. Disclaimer of warranties

RECURSIVE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT RECURSIVE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, PRODUCE CORRECT OR USEFUL OUTPUT, OR BE COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR ENVIRONMENT. YOU USE RECURSIVE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FUTURE IN DETAIL LLC AND ITS OFFICERS, MEMBERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF RECURSIVE, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR RECURSIVE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR RECURSIVE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100).

14. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Future In Detail LLC from any claim, demand, or liability, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of (a) your use of Recursive, (b) your violation of these Terms, (c) your violation of any law or third-party right, or (d) any content or code you create, run, or distribute using Recursive.

15. Governing law and venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or Recursive will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in New York County, New York, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you by email. Continued use of Recursive after a change means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree to the new Terms, stop using Recursive.

17. Miscellaneous

These Terms are the entire agreement between you and us regarding Recursive and supersede any prior agreement on the same subject. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to [email protected].