How we work together.
These terms cover engagements with AsksFirst. They are written to be read rather than survived, so they are short and say what they mean. Where they say “I” or “my”, that is George and the business he runs; the legal entity behind AsksFirst is named at the foot of this page and is who you contract with.
AsksFirst is my own business. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any employer of mine, or any client of that employer, and nothing I build for you is done in any employer's name or with any employer's materials. The check on the booking form is there to keep that line clean, which is why it is not optional. I work as an independent contractor rather than as your employee, and I decide how the work gets done.
Requesting a session is not a booking
Submitting the form asks for a time; it does not reserve one. I read every request, run the conflict check, and reply within one business day, including when the answer is no. An engagement begins only when I confirm it in writing. That confirmation links to the version of these terms that applies, and paying the invoice is how you accept them. If you are booking for a company, you confirm that you may commit it.
Scope is fixed, and written down first
Each package covers a stated number of sessions and a stated number of use cases, agreed in writing before the first session. A "use case" is one job you do repeatedly with a clear start and finish. If what you want turns out to be larger than what was agreed, I will say so in the first session rather than at the end, and we either narrow it or price the extra work separately.
Payment
- You pay after I confirm the engagement, not before.
- Fees are the fixed amount quoted on the consultation call and confirmed in writing before we begin, in US dollars, due on the invoice terms stated there.
- Discounts are not offered. Seasonal offers do run occasionally, and a small-group rate is available when a group comes together.
- An Audit fee is credited in full against a full review confirmed within 30 days of the Audit.
- There is no retainer and no recurring fee. Nothing auto-renews, because there is nothing to renew.
Rescheduling and cancellation
Move a session by telling me at least 24 hours ahead and there is no charge. Inside 24 hours, or a no-show, and that session is used. Cancel before the first session and you are refunded in full; cancel after work has started and you owe the sessions delivered, which I will itemise. If I have to move a session, I give you the same notice and a replacement time within the week; if I cannot, that session is refunded.
Your accounts, your keys, your machine
Everything is built on your hardware, in your accounts. You sign up for your own AI provider and pay it directly. I never hold your credentials, your API keys or your payment details. It is built so that if I disappear tomorrow, nothing of yours depends on me. That is the design, not a disclaimer.
What you own
You own everything produced for you in the engagement: the configuration, the standards document and the working jobs, outright, once paid. Three things stay mine, and you get a permanent, free licence to use them as part of what I built for you: the templates and tooling I bring with me, the general methods and know-how I use, and anything general I work out along the way that does not contain your confidential information. Third-party tools stay under their own licences. I may describe the kind of problem we solved without naming you. I will not name you, quote you or show your work as a reference unless you tell me in writing that I may.
Confidentiality
What you show me stays with me, and what I show you stays with you. That does not cover anything already public, anything either of us already knew, or anything a court or a law requires us to disclose, in which case I tell you unless I am forbidden to. If you have a mutual NDA I will usually sign it; send it before booking so I can read it first.
Support after the engagement
Each package includes one 30-minute follow-up within 30 days of the final session. Beyond that, further help is a new fixed fee engagement. I do not sell a response-time guarantee, because this practice runs alongside a full-time job and I will not promise a number I cannot keep.
Hand-off, and what happens after
At the end of the final session we run each job together, you watch the gate stop it and ask you, and you confirm it does what we agreed. That run is the hand-off: the work is delivered, and from then on the system is yours. You are responsible for what your systems do after that: including anything that happens because you, or anyone with access to your machine or accounts, changed, removed or worked around a gate, a standard or a job we set up, and including any action an agent takes that you approved. Keeping the standards document current as your business changes is also yours. If something breaks inside the 30-day follow-up window, say so and we look at it together.
Your data, and what I will not touch
Only give me access to data you are allowed to share with an outside contractor. I work on your machine, with you present, and I do not take copies of your data away with me, so you stay in control of it and responsible for it. Some things I will not work with in these packages at all: protected health information, full payment-card numbers, and anything under a security clearance or export control. If your use case touches any of those, say so before booking and I will tell you whether I can help. If I come across something like that during a session I will stop and we decide together what to do, without my touching it.
What I do not promise
- I am not your lawyer, accountant, auditor or compliance function. An audit or review from me is a technical opinion. It is not a legal opinion, a certification, an attestation, or a substitute for professional advice in a regulated matter.
- I do not guarantee a business outcome. I will not promise revenue, savings, hours recovered, or that a system will never fail.
- AI systems make mistakes. The design rule for everything I build is that anything outward: a send, a delete, a charge: stops and asks you first, and every run writes down what it did. I show you each gate working before I leave. That design reduces the damage a mistake does; it does not make mistakes impossible, and it only holds while the gates stay as we left them.
- Your rules are yours. Whether what we build is allowed under the laws, regulations and contracts that apply to your business: privacy law, sector rules, your customers’ terms, is your call and your responsibility. I build to the standards document we agree, and I do not check your compliance with anything.
- Your accounts run under their own terms. You are the account holder with every provider we use, and I work inside your login with you present. Keeping those accounts compliant is yours. Whatever a job sends to your AI provider leaves your machine under that provider’s terms; what may be sent is part of the standards document, and the decision is yours. Their outages, price changes and policy changes are not my breach.
- Work is provided as described here and, beyond that, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose.
What I bring is judgement, experience and the work itself. I cannot promise a particular business result, because results depend on your business and on decisions that are yours to make, and any estimate of time or effort I give you is an estimate rather than a commitment. What I can promise is this: if something I set up does not do what we agreed it would do, tell me and I will put it right. That is the remedy, and it is the one I can actually honour.
Limit of liability
My total liability arising out of an engagement, however the claim is framed: contract, negligence or otherwise, is capped at the fees you paid me for that engagement. Neither of us is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for lost profits, lost revenue or lost data. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. If someone else brings a claim against me because of how you used what we built, or because of data you gave me access to, you will cover it.
When I will say no, or stop
I may decline a request or end an engagement if the conflict check fails, if the work would require me to breach a duty I owe someone else, if what is being asked is unlawful, or if we cannot work together productively, in which case I say so plainly. If I end an engagement part-way, you pay only for what was delivered and I refund the rest.
Law, and how a dispute gets handled
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The courts of Dallas County, Texas have exclusive jurisdiction. Before filing anything, email me. Nearly everything is faster to fix than to litigate.
The rest
Our written engagement confirmation and these terms are the whole agreement, and the confirmation wins if the two conflict. If a clause is unenforceable the remainder stands. Neither of us waives a right by not enforcing it immediately. I may update these terms for future engagements; the version in force is the one published when I confirmed yours.
Client quotes and ratings on this site are published with each client's written permission, and any client may ask me to remove theirs at any time.
Last updated 2 October 2026. Questions: hello@asksfirst.com.
AsksFirst is a trading name of Sweetum Co LLC, a limited liability company registered in Texas, United States, which is the party you contract with.