> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.openinary.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Telemetry

> What anonymous usage data Openinary collects, and how to disable it

Openinary sends a small amount of anonymous, aggregated usage data to help prioritize development. This page lists **exactly** what is sent — nothing more.

## Why

Openinary is self-hosted and the entire codebase is public, so there is no way to track usage the way a hosted SaaS would. Without any signal, it's hard to know which features are actually used or how many instances exist. Telemetry gives directional data (not precise counts) while staying anonymous.

## What is sent

Two events, both with a fixed, whitelisted set of properties. No file names, media content, URLs, user data, or IP addresses are ever included.

| Event              | When                                    | Properties                                                                                |
| ------------------ | --------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `instance_started` | Once, on first ever boot of an instance | `version`, `deployment_mode`, `storage_backend`, `os_platform`, `os_arch`, `node_version` |
| `daily_heartbeat`  | Once every \~24h while the process runs | `version`, `deployment_mode`, `storage_backend`, `video_jobs_bucket`                      |

Counts are never sent as raw numbers — they're bucketed into ranges (`0`, `1-10`, `11-100`, `101-1000`, `1000+`).

Each instance has a random UUID (`instance_id`) generated on first boot and stored in the local database. It cannot be linked back to you or your data.

## Where it goes

Events are sent to `telemetry.openinary.dev`, a small proxy maintained by the Openinary project. The proxy validates the payload against the same whitelist, rate-limits per instance, and forwards accepted events to a PostHog project. Your instance never talks to PostHog directly, and never holds a PostHog key.

## Disabling it

<ParamField path="OPENINARY_TELEMETRY" type="boolean" default="true">
  Set to `false` to disable telemetry entirely. No requests are made.
</ParamField>

```bash theme={null}
OPENINARY_TELEMETRY=false
```

The code that generates and sends these events lives in [`apps/api/src/utils/telemetry.ts`](https://github.com/openinary/openinary/blob/main/apps/api/src/utils/telemetry.ts) — read it if you want to verify this page is accurate.