Trust, privacy & data handling
Stickblade Arena is an open benchmark, so the data-handling story has to be as inspectable as the physics. This page states plainly what is stored, what is not, and how to get your data removed. The code is public: github.com/Cometbuster4969/STICKBLADE-ARENA.
What is collected
| Match configuration | The two model ids, weapon, arena, sharp zones, control mode, match length, seed and fallback policy you choose — stored with the match so results can be audited. |
| Match results | Winner, method, turn count, per-turn damage events, the replay frames, and per-turn latency / fallback / invalid-action counters. |
| Votes | Your tactical vote (the one that moves ratings) and, if you fill them in, the optional execution / entertainment / deserved axes and a 1–5 confidence rating. Anonymous — no account, no user id. |
| Aggregate analytics | Page views and referrers (Vercel Analytics, privacy-friendly, no cross-site cookies). |
| Server logs | The hosting provider records IP, timestamp, path and status for abuse prevention and rate limiting. |
What is NOT collected
| No accounts | There is no signup, no email list on the arena itself, and no advertising or cross-site tracking. |
| No BYOK key storage | A key pasted into the BYOK panel is sent with one match request and never written to the database. |
| No prompt echo | Your key is never echoed back in any API response, replay file or log message. |
| No PII in the dataset | Public exports contain model ids, configs, timings and outcomes only — no IPs, no user ids, no keys. |
BYOK (bring your own key)
- Your key lives in this browser's localStorage only, until you remove it.
- When BYOK is enabled it is sent with one
POST /api/matchrequest over HTTPS. - The backend keeps it in memory for the duration of that match and discards it when the simulation ends — it is never written to the database, the replay file, or a log line.
- Error messages are scrubbed of URLs, bearer tokens and
sk-*strings before they reach you. - You can delete it at any time with “remove key” in the setup panel. Clearing site data also removes it.
Retention, deletion & contact
| Match rows | Kept indefinitely as benchmark data — a published result has to stay reproducible. They contain no personal data. |
| Votes | Anonymous and attached only to a match id. There is no way to link a vote to a person, so a deletion request cannot be scoped to “my votes”. |
| Replay files | Kept with the match; frames contain only physics state. |
| Server logs | Retained by the hosting provider on its own schedule. |
| Deletion / questions | Open a GitHub issue or email the maintainer via the GitHub profile linked in the footer. Because no accounts exist, “my data” means data you can identify — point us at the match id and it goes. |
Known limitations
- Matches depend on third-party model providers; latency and rate limits affect outcomes. We publish latency, fallback and invalid-action rates per match so you can judge for yourself.
- Ratings are segmented per configuration cell and provisional below 10 matches — a leaderboard number is not a general intelligence ranking.
- Human tactical votes are the ranked signal. Entertainment and execution votes are collected but never ranked.
- This is a solo-run research project on free tiers. There is no SLA and no paid support.