Terms of Service

The terms for using the dollama network for inference and for contributing idle compute as a node operator.

Last updated: July 2, 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

By installing the dollama CLI, connecting to the dollama relay (api.dollama.net), using the network to serve inference requests, or contributing compute as a node operator, you agree to these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you don't agree, don't use the network — you can still use the dollama CLI entirely locally with your own Ollama installation (Local Only mode), which doesn't touch these Terms at all.

These Terms should be read together with the Privacy Policy, which describes what happens to your data.

2. Description of the Service

dollama is a decentralized, volunteer-driven network for sharing idle LLM inference compute — think Folding@Home for LLM inference, built on Ollama. There is no company operating dollama as a commercial service; it is open-source software and a community-run relay that matches requesters to volunteer compute contributors. The relay routes and streams requests; it does not perform inference itself and does not store your prompt or response content (see the Privacy Policy).

3. Eligibility

You must be able to form a legally binding contract to use the network — generally, you must be at least the age of majority in your jurisdiction, or have the permission of a parent or guardian.

4. Using the Network for Inference

Best-effort, no SLA. Inference is provided by volunteers on a best-effort basis. There is no guaranteed uptime, latency, throughput, or model quality. The network may be slow, unavailable, or route your request to a machine with different performance characteristics than another user's.
No warranty on model output. Model responses are generated by third-party open-weight models running on volunteer hardware. dollama does not review, curate, or guarantee the accuracy, safety, or appropriateness of any model output. Treat model output the way you would from any LLM provider — verify before you rely on it.
Fair-use tracking. Your usage (token counts, request volume) is tracked to enforce fair-use rate limits and to compute your contribution balance. See §6 on the balance/priority system.
Plaintext exposure. Outside of Local Only mode, your prompts and responses are visible in plaintext to the machine(s) that process them (see the Privacy Policy for exactly which machines, per mode). Don't send secrets, credentials, or anything you wouldn't send to a third-party cloud API, unless you're in Local Only mode.

5. Contributing Compute (Node Operators)

If you choose to run dollama in a mode that shares your hardware with the network, the following applies:

Voluntary, revocable. Contributing is entirely optional and can be stopped at any time by switching modes or stopping dollama. There is no obligation to keep your node online.
Your hardware, others' requests. Other users' inference requests may run on your machine while you're contributing. You are responsible for ensuring your hardware, network connection, and local laws permit this.
Your hardware first. You always retain priority access to your own node for your own requests — contributing never reduces the availability of your own hardware to you.
No payment, no financialization. There is no monetary compensation for contributing compute. Contribution is tracked as a running balance used only to prioritize your own requests when the network is busy — it is not a token, cryptocurrency, or tradeable asset, and cannot be bought, sold, or transferred.
Bandwidth & resource usage. Serving requests consumes your bandwidth, GPU/CPU cycles, and electricity. You are responsible for these costs.
No inspection guarantee. We cannot verify what you do with content that passes through your node while serving requests. By contributing, you agree not to log, store, inspect, or otherwise misuse content you process on behalf of other users.

6. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use dollama — as a requester or as a node operator — to:

Generate or distribute content that is illegal in the jurisdiction where you or the content's recipients are located.
Attempt to disrupt, overload, or degrade the network's availability for other users (e.g. denial-of-service behavior).
Attempt to circumvent rate limits, fair-use tracking, or the balance/priority system through automation or account manipulation.
Attempt to gain unauthorized access to another user's account, API key, node, or content.
Submit sensitive personal data, credentials, or regulated data (e.g. health, financial, or legally privileged information) to Private Network or Open Network modes, given the plaintext-exposure characteristics described in §4 and the Privacy Policy.
As a node operator, run modified software that misrepresents your node's capabilities, benchmark results, or identity to the relay.

We may suspend or revoke access (API keys, node registrations) for accounts or nodes that violate this section, without prior notice, on a best-effort/community-moderation basis appropriate to a volunteer project.

7. No Warranty

dollama — the software, the relay, and the network of volunteer nodes — is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE," without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, availability, or accuracy of results. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, or that any model output will be accurate, safe, or fit for your purpose.

8. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall dollama's maintainers, contributors, or node operators be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of data, profits, or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of (or inability to use) the network — including damages resulting from model output, network unavailability, or another node operator's or requester's conduct.

This is a volunteer, community-run project. There is no commercial entity to indemnify losses, and no service-level agreement backs any use of the network.

9. Intellectual Property

dollama is open-source software; see the GitHub repository for the current license terms governing the code itself. You retain all rights to the prompts, files, and content you submit through the network — dollama and its contributors claim no ownership over your content and do not use it for any purpose beyond routing and generating the response you requested.

10. Termination

You may stop using dollama, revoke your API key, or stop contributing compute at any time. We may suspend or terminate access for violations of §6 (Acceptable Use) or where required to protect the network's availability or other users. Because the relay stores no content, termination does not involve any content deletion request — there is no content on the relay to delete (see the Privacy Policy §4).

11. Changes to These Terms

As dollama is under active development, these Terms may change to reflect new features (for example, group sharing, new privacy modes, or end-to-end encryption). We'll update the "Last updated" date above when we do. Continued use of the network after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

12. Governing Law

These Terms are provided as a general community framework for a volunteer, open-source project and do not designate a specific governing jurisdiction. If you require a specific governing-law clause for your use case (e.g. organizational deployment), please raise it via GitHub Issues.

13. Contact

Questions about these Terms should go to GitHub Issues on the project repository.

Read the Privacy Policy →