Product feedback

Use Send feedback in the header to report a bug, suggest a change, or tell the maintainers about Hephaestus. The form accepts bug reports, ideas, and general feedback without asking you to choose a category. This is separate from practice feedback about your work.

Send a report

1. Select Send feedback in the header. On a phone, select the speech-bubble icon.
2. Describe what happened or what you would like to improve.
3. Optional: select Post as a public GitHub issue. If you leave it clear, the report stays private.
4. Select Send.

When Hephaestus saves your report, the form closes and a short notice says where it went. View in that notice opens its status and any available actions. Filing on GitHub continues in the background.

For a bug, describe the action, what happened, and what you expected. You do not need to publish or review the draft yourself.

To open the dialog from any page, press Cmd+Shift+F on a Mac, or Ctrl+Shift+F on other systems. To send, press Cmd+Enter or Ctrl+Enter.

Wait one minute between reports. You can send up to five reports per UTC day across all workspaces. Instance admins have no daily limit.

If sending fails, the dialog keeps your text and explains why. Closing the dialog keeps your unsent text until you reload, switch workspace, or sign out.

Where your report goes

Your instance decides whether reports become GitHub issues. Until it does, your instance admins read reports in Hephaestus. When GitHub filing is on, an AI model from the provider named in your instance’s privacy notice drafts an issue from your report. A private report also goes to that provider and to a private GitHub repository.

A report becomes a public issue only with your permission and after the checks pass. It stays private if a check finds a security risk, a secret, an email address, or a known person’s name. Reports about a person, abusive or unclear reports, and reports without a usable draft also stay private.

The AI model keeps praise and support questions private, but it can misclassify them. If a report must stay private, do not select Post as a public GitHub issue.

Choose public or private

A report stays private unless you select Post as a public GitHub issue. The box is clear on your first report. Once you select it, Hephaestus remembers that and starts your next report with it selected. Clearing it applies to that report only. To change what Hephaestus remembers, use User settings → Product feedback. If your instance changes its privacy notice version, the box starts clear again.

What a public issue contains

A public issue contains a short title, your problem or idea, the kind of page where you started, and the Hephaestus version. The page is named by its kind, such as the Activity page, without your workspace’s name or IDs. The report never includes query parameters, page contents, or logs. Anyone can read a public issue, including people without a Hephaestus account.

Hephaestus removes the personal details and secrets that it finds before it drafts the issue, and checks the text again before filing. It can miss details, so leave out other people’s personal information and secrets.

The instance’s GitHub App posts the issue without your account details or email address. It mentions your GitHub account only if you turn that on in User settings → Product feedback. Your original report stays linked to your account, where instance admins can read it. It is not anonymous.

Use the five-minute hold

A public report waits five minutes after Send before filing. Hephaestus drafts the issue during that time. You do not have to stay on the page or approve the draft.

While the report waits, Your reports offers Keep private and Edit:

• Keep private sends the report to the private repository.
• Edit lets you change the draft and starts a new five-minute hold with new checks.

An edit cannot clear a privacy or security risk that a check found. After filing starts, Keep private cannot stop it. Use Make private after filing instead.

Follow your reports

1. Open your account menu in the header.
2. Select Your reports.

The page lists your reports with their date, an excerpt, destination, state, and issue links where available. Every product feedback update email links to this page.

Make a public issue private

1. Open Your reports.
2. Find the public report.
3. Select Make private.
4. Confirm Make private.

Hephaestus moves the issue to the private repository, even if it is closed. Copies made while it was public can remain in email, archives, or other people’s records. Hephaestus cannot remove those copies. If the move cannot finish, contact your instance admin.

Allow a private report to become public

1. Open Your reports.
2. Find the private report.
3. Select Allow public.

This lets a maintainer publish the report. It does not publish the report by itself or skip the privacy and security checks. You can withdraw that permission while the report stays private. Allow public also starts your next report with Post as a public GitHub issue selected.

Change your defaults

1. Open User settings → Product feedback.
2. Turn Public GitHub issues on or off for future reports.
3. Optional: if you have a connected GitHub account, turn on the switch that mentions your GitHub account on public issues.

The mention lets anyone see that you sent the report. Private issues do not carry it. Turning off Public GitHub issues also keeps your waiting public reports private. It does not move issues that are already public. Use Make private for each of them.

Email updates

Product feedback updates are on by default. If your account has a verified email address and your instance sends email, Hephaestus can tell you when:

• Your report was filed, with a public issue link or a private confirmation.
• Someone other than the app commented on a public issue.
• The issue closed as completed, not planned, or a duplicate.
• The issue reopened.

Updates can take about 30 minutes to arrive. Comments on private issues send no email. To stop these updates, use the unsubscribe link in an email or your email notification settings.

Erase your report data

Reports do not expire by age. When you delete your account, or when the workspace that you sent from is deleted, Hephaestus removes those reports. An export through your instance’s privacy contact includes your reports, their destinations, and issue links.

Erasure cancels waiting reports. Hephaestus moves public issues to the private repository, replaces their text with “Erased at the reporter’s request”, and closes them. This can take time if GitHub is unavailable. The app cannot delete issues or their edit history, so maintainers finish those steps where needed. Copies outside GitHub can remain, and requests already sent to the model provider cannot be recalled.

User settings explains how to delete your account. Your data in Hephaestus explains wider erasure requests and your instance’s privacy contact.

Troubleshooting

Your report stayed private

The status of your report in Your reports explains why a check kept it private. The maintainers receive it.

Your report is not on GitHub

Your instance might not file reports on GitHub, or filing might be paused. Filing can also stop if GitHub refuses a request. Your report stays saved, and your instance admins can read it and send it to GitHub later.