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For your team

Is it really anonymous?

Someone at your company added Sincere to your Slack. You want to know whether an anonymous feedback tool your employer picked is really anonymous. This page explains what it stores about you and what it doesn't.

This is the plain-language version. The full technical design lists exactly what is stored, how, and where the limits are.

What happens when you post

  1. 01

    You type /sincere your honest thought anywhere in Slack. Slash commands are only visible to you, so nobody else sees you do it.

  2. 02

    Your message goes into a queue with no name attached and no record of when you sent it. The database has no column for either.

  3. 03

    The bot posts it to the feedback channel at a random moment within the next 24 hours, so nobody can match "posted at 2:47" with "I saw them typing at 2:47".

  4. 04

    Teammates vote agree or disagree. Only the totals exist anywhere. Who voted, and which way, is never recorded.

Common questions

Can HR or my manager find out who wrote something?

No. The connection between you and your message is never stored, so there is nothing to hand over to your employer, to us, or to anyone with a subpoena.

Couldn't the timing give me away?

No. The moment you submitted is never written down, and the message is posted at a random time between a few seconds and a full day later.

Can anyone see how I voted?

No. To stop double voting, the system keeps a scrambled, one-way code for each vote. The code can't be turned back into your name, doesn't record which way you voted, and can't be used to tell that you voted on two different messages.

Does an AI read my message?

Yes, once, when you submit. An automated check blocks harassment and threats and lets blunt criticism through. It sees only the text, with no name, workspace or time attached, and neither the text nor the result is stored afterwards.

Does HR get a report I can't see?

Your company can have a weekly summary sent to a channel it chooses. It is built only from what's already in the feedback channel: the messages and their vote totals, sorted by how much agreement they got. There is nothing in it about who posted or who voted, because that information doesn't exist.

What should I still be careful about?

Two things. First, Slack itself knows you used the command. Slack's own policies cover that, and we can only control what we store. Second, in a very small team, what you write can identify you even when the system doesn't. "The deploy process I built is bad" narrows things down fast in a four-person channel.

Read the full design

Every claim on this page comes from the technical design, which also lists the limits, like the small-team one above. Send it to whoever on your team is most likely to find a hole in it. If they find one, tell us.

For the person rolling it out

Announce it to your team

Here is an announcement you can paste into Slack. Change the channel name and the tone to fit your team: 

:wave: Hi everyone! We've added *Sincere* to our Slack. It's a way to share honest feedback anonymously.

*How it works:*
• Type `/sincere` followed by your thought, from anywhere in Slack. Nobody sees you do it.
• The bot posts it to #your-feedback-channel at a random time in the next 24 hours, with no name attached.
• Anyone can vote agree or disagree. Votes are anonymous too, and only the totals are shown.

*Why it's anonymous:* Sincere never stores who wrote or voted on anything, so nobody can look it up later. That includes us and the people who run Sincere. They publish how it works: https://sincere.bot/for-your-team

One post per person per day.
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