Privacy Policy

1. What Cobalt Is

Cobalt is a self-hosted companion tool for the game Rust. It receives game events from the Cobalt Watcher desktop app running on your computer and enriches them with publicly available data from Steam and BattleMetrics so you can identify players who have received VAC or game bans.

2. Data We Collect

From Discord (when you sign in):

• Discord username
• Discord user ID
• Discord avatar hash

We request only the identify scope — we cannot read your messages, server memberships, or any other Discord data.

From the Cobalt Watcher desktop app:

• Kill events from your Rust game log: killer's in-game name, killer's Steam ID, timestamp
• Rust server IP address and port when you connect to a server

The Watcher only reads your local Rust log file and sends events to this server over HTTPS using your personal API token. No other data leaves your machine.

From the Steam Web API (public data):

• Steam account creation date
• Steam level
• Number of owned games
• VAC ban status, VAC ban count, and days since last ban
• Game ban count, community ban status, trade ban status

From the BattleMetrics API (public data):

• Total Rust hours
• Top servers by time played
• Recent player name history

3. How We Use Your Data

• To authenticate you via Discord and maintain your session
• To display your personal kill feed
• To enrich player profiles with ban and account information for cheat detection
• To notify you when a player who killed you later receives a ban

Your data is never sold, shared with third parties for advertising, or used for any purpose beyond operating this service.

4. Data Storage and Retention

All data is stored in a SQLite database on the server that hosts this instance of Cobalt. Kill events, player profiles, and server records are retained until manually deleted by you or an administrator. Your account and all associated records can be deleted by contacting the server owner.

5. Third-Party Services

When you sign in, your browser communicates directly with Discord to complete OAuth authentication. Player enrichment causes this server to make outbound requests to the Steam Web API and the BattleMetrics API on your behalf. Those services' own privacy policies apply to data they collect from those requests.

6. Cookies and Sessions

Cobalt uses a single encrypted authentication cookie to maintain your login session. No analytics cookies, tracking pixels, or third-party cookies are set.

7. Your Rights

You may request deletion of your account and all associated data at any time by contacting the server owner. Enriched player profiles (Steam/BattleMetrics data attached to a Steam ID) may be retained for other users' kill feeds unless explicitly requested for removal.

8. Contact

This instance of Cobalt is self-hosted. For questions about how your data is handled on this specific instance, contact the server operator. For questions about the Cobalt software itself, open an issue on GitHub.