Identity, account, and route
A user account combines sign-in credentials with a stable public-facing identity. The immutable user name is the route key
used in paths like /Profile/{user-name}. That route value is meant for links and cannot be edited later,
which keeps profile URLs stable across the site, the API, exports, and shared references.
The account itself is broader than the public profile page. A user can have a private profile page and still keep using notes, teams, search, comments, and trackables. Privacy here controls the page route, not the fact that the person exists inside the system.
Profile page versus person
LocationNotes separates the person from the visibility of the profile page. The profile page can be Private Profile, My Teams Are Allowed To View, or Public Profile. That setting decides who can open the page itself. It does not mean the user name or display label disappears from every other allowed context.
- User names can still appear in team rosters, note ownership labels, comment authorship, trackable ownership labels, exports, and moderation trails.
- A private profile page means the profile route is restricted, not that the user name is globally hidden.
- When a page cannot be opened, the UI may still show the user label with non-link hover text such as “Profile page is private.”
What a user can own and control
Users can directly own personal notes, personal categories, personally activated trackables, trackable groups, comments, and account settings. A user may also be the creator of a team or a trackable without being the long-term owner of every object that came from that creation event.
- A personal note always belongs to one user, even when it is published publicly.
- A user can create a team, but the team becomes its own object with its own visibility, membership, and export rules.
- A user can create unactivated trackables that later become owned by the person or team that activates them.
- A user can activate a trackable to themselves or to a team, which changes the management scope for that item.
How users relate to teams
A user can belong to many teams at once. Inside a team, the user may be an admin or a member. Team admins can manage page settings, memberships, invite flows, and team-wide exports. Regular members still participate in the team’s notes and may keep certain trackable-management powers if they were the activating member for a team-owned trackable.
A user leaving a team is not the same as deleting the user account. When a user leaves, access changes immediately. When a user deletes the account, personal data is removed, but team-owned and shared records may survive according to the retention rules documented on the legal pages.
How users relate to notes
Every synced note still has a user owner, even when it also belongs to a team. That user relationship matters for authorship, moderation fallbacks, exports, deletion, and conversion rules when a team note is removed or a team is deleted. Notes are where user identity becomes visible on maps, public pages, and hierarchy pages.
How users relate to trackables
A user can create, activate, carry, comment on, and attach trackables to notes. Trackables make the distinction between creator, activator, owner scope, and public visibility especially important.
- The creator is the user who generated or registered the item originally.
- The owner scope is whoever currently controls it: the activating user or the activating team.
- The activating member may keep management authority on a team-owned trackable while they remain on that team.
- Public trackable pages can still show user labels even when the linked profile page is private.
Exports, deletion, and continuity
Users can export their personal data and, if they are team admins, separately export team data. Personal exports and personal deletion are not allowed to erase data that belongs to other people or to a still-active team. That is why a deleted user’s personal activity can be removed while a shared trackable or team-owned note remains.
- Personal exports can include strictly personal trackable secret credentials for departure and recovery purposes.
- Team exports do not normally expose those credentials unless the user owner is unavailable and the team needs recovery access.
- Deleting a user account removes the personal account scope, but not every surviving shared object that user once touched.