Terms of service

Who these terms are between

These terms are between you and Ajay Kumar Emani, trading as Lytheo, an independent consultant based in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Lytheo is not an incorporated company; contracting is with an individual. In these terms, “I” and “me” mean that person, and “you” means the person or business using this site or engaging me.

Part A — Using this website

A1. Acceptable use

You may read this site, share links to it, and quote it with attribution. You may not:

• attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of it or its infrastructure;
• submit the enquiry form with false details, on someone else’s behalf without their knowledge, or in a way designed to abuse it;
• scrape it at a volume that degrades service for others, or in a way that ignores robots.txt;
• use it to distribute malware or unlawful material.

Automated access for research, indexing and AI training is expressly permitted within robots.txt, and there is a machine-readable summary at /llms.txt and a documented enquiry API. See how I use AI for the full position.

A2. Accuracy of content

The content here is written carefully and reflects genuine experience. Figures presented as ranges are observations from practice, not guarantees, and are labelled as such. Where a number relates to work done in a previous employed role rather than for a client, the page says so explicitly. No representation is made that you would achieve any particular result.

Nothing on this site is legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. Articles naming third-party products do so descriptively; no partnership, endorsement, certification or affiliation is implied and none exists.

A3. Intellectual property

The text, design, code and brand assets of this site are mine. You may quote reasonable extracts with attribution and a link. You may not republish substantial portions as your own. Third-party names and marks appearing on this site belong to their respective owners and are used descriptively under nominative fair use.

A4. No offer

Nothing on this website constitutes an offer capable of acceptance. Descriptions of services, timescales and the pricing model are indicative. A binding engagement arises only when a written proposal setting out scope and price is signed by both of us.

Part B — Engagement terms

These apply to paid work. Where a signed proposal says something different, the proposal wins.

B1. Scope and changes

Each engagement is defined by a written proposal setting out what will be built, the timeline, and one fixed price. Work outside that scope is quoted separately in writing and started only once you approve it. The original price is not affected by my own misestimates.

B2. Fees and payment

• Engagements are quoted as a single fixed price. I do not bill hourly.
• Invoices are raised against milestones tied to delivered, demonstrable work — not to elapsed time.
• Payment terms are stated on each invoice; 14 days from invoice date unless agreed otherwise.
• Third-party running costs — AI model usage, automation platform subscriptions, hosting — are billed by those vendors directly to accounts you own. They are not marked up and not billed through me. An estimate is provided before the build, with its assumptions shown.
• The initial 30-minute consultation and the written audit that comes from it are free and carry no obligation.

B3. Taxes

I am currently registered for tax as an individual in India and, at the date above, am not registered for Indian GST. Invoices state clearly what is and is not included. Where you are outside India, your local rules on reverse-charge VAT, GST or sales tax may apply to you as the recipient of services; you are responsible for your own tax position and should take your own advice. If my registration status changes in a way that affects your invoices, I will tell you before the next one.

B4. Your responsibilities

For work to proceed, you agree to:

• provide timely access to the systems, accounts and information the work depends on, and a named person who can answer questions;
• confirm you have the right to grant that access and to have the data in question processed;
• review and respond to deliverables within a reasonable time.

Where delay is caused by these not happening, the timeline moves accordingly. It does not change the price.

B5. Ownership of what is built

On receipt of final payment, all rights in the custom code, workflows, prompts, configuration and documentation created specifically for you transfer to you absolutely. Everything runs in accounts registered to you. There is no proprietary Lytheo platform that you must keep subscribing to in order to keep using what you paid for.

I retain ownership of generic tools, libraries, patterns and know-how developed before or independently of your engagement, and may reuse them elsewhere. That reuse never includes your data, your business logic, or anything specific to you.

B6. Confidentiality

Anything non-public you tell me is confidential and will not be disclosed or used for any purpose other than your engagement. This obligation survives the end of our working relationship indefinitely. A separate NDA will be signed on request, at no charge, before you share anything sensitive.

I will not name you as a client, or publish anything about your engagement, without your prior written permission. Where permission is given, you approve the wording before it is published.

B7. Data protection

Where I process personal data on your behalf, I do so as a processor on your documented instructions, and a data processing agreement will be put in place covering security measures, sub-processors, breach notification and deletion on termination. Personal data collected through this website is covered separately by the privacy policy.

B8. AI-specific terms

Where a deliverable uses AI models, you acknowledge that such systems are probabilistic and can produce incorrect output. I will design guardrails, evaluation and fallback behaviour proportionate to the risk, and will report measured accuracy on your own data before launch. I do not warrant that any AI component will be free of error, and systems are designed on the assumption that errors occur.

Where a system communicates with your customers, it will identify itself as automated. I will not build systems designed to deceive people about whether they are interacting with a human. Details are in how I use AI.

B9. Warranties and support

Work is performed with reasonable skill and care. Every build includes 30 days of support from launch, during which defects — the system not doing what the agreed scope says — are corrected at no charge. New requirements are new scope.

I cannot warrant against changes made by third parties. If a vendor changes or withdraws an API, fixing it is chargeable work unless a care plan is in place, and I will tell you what it will cost before starting.

B10. Care plans

Care plans are month to month with no minimum term and no notice period. Cancel at any time and you keep everything. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid month.

B11. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

Subject to that, my total liability arising from an engagement is limited to the total fees you paid for that engagement. I am not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, or indirect or consequential loss.

You are responsible for maintaining your own backups and for the accuracy of data you provide.

B12. Termination

Either of us may end an engagement by written notice. On termination you pay for work completed and milestones reached up to that point; I hand over everything produced to date with its documentation, and delete my working copies of your data. Clauses on confidentiality, ownership of paid-for work, and liability survive.

B13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of India, and the courts of Hyderabad, Telangana, India have jurisdiction. If you are a business in another country and would prefer a different governing law, raise it before signing — it is negotiable and frequently agreed.

If you are contracting as a consumer rather than a business, mandatory consumer protection rules in your country of residence continue to apply and nothing here removes them.

B14. General

If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest continues in force. Failure to enforce a term is not a waiver of it. These terms plus the signed proposal are the entire agreement between us on their subject matter. No third party has rights under these terms.