Terms of service

• Cobaltian is QA and automation support under your engineer of record. We don't stamp drawings, and hiring us doesn't replace your own engineering review.
• A review is a best-effort check of the package as you sent it — not a guarantee that every error is caught.
• Our liability on any engagement is capped at what you paid or owe for that engagement.
• Scope and price are confirmed in writing before work starts, and each tier stands on its own.
• Once paid for, the report, workbook, and any tool we built for you are yours.
• Either side can end ongoing work with reasonable notice; work already done still gets paid for.
• Texas law governs. Questions before an engagement? Email hello@cobaltian-engineering.com.

Cobaltian provides quality-assurance review and automation support for electrical drawing packages: findings reports, full-package risk scans, and — where it's worth it — the scripts and tools that catch or fix the recurring errors a scan turned up. That's the whole offer, and these terms cover all four tiers on the engagement ladder.

Just as important is what an engagement is not. Cobaltian is not your engineer of record and never becomes it. We don't stamp or seal drawings. Engagements are QA and automation support, not professional engineering services — where a jurisdiction requires work to be done under a licensed engineer's responsible charge, that role stays with your engineer of record, not with us. Your engineer of record remains responsible for the design, its code and contract compliance, and everything that gets issued; our findings are input to your review process, and what to act on is your call.

Cobaltian works as an independent contractor — an outside check on your package, not part of your firm and not a party to your contracts with your clients.

A scan or review is a best-effort pass over the package as you provided it — the drawings cross-checked against the schedules, register, and transmittal history you sent. We do the work carefully, with both automated and manual checks, and both have limits: they catch what they are built and briefed to catch.

• Not every error will be caught. We don't warrant that findings are complete, and a review that comes back clean doesn't mean the package is error-free.
• Findings inherit their inputs. The review checks your files against your schedules and register. If the source material is stale or incomplete, the findings can only be as good as it was.
• One layer, not the last one. A Cobaltian review doesn't replace your own QA and engineering review, and shouldn't be relied on as the sole check before a package is issued. Cobaltian isn't liable for errors a review didn't catch, or for a package being issued on the strength of our review alone.

Here's the honest reasoning, before the terms: a few-thousand-dollar review cannot carry the risk of a whole substation project. If it had to, this service couldn't exist at these prices — the only way a one-person shop can offer this work is with liability proportionate to the fee, and we'd rather say that out loud than bury it.

• The cap. To the maximum extent Texas law allows, Cobaltian's total liability arising out of an engagement — whatever the legal theory, including claims based on Cobaltian's negligence — is limited to the fees paid or payable to Cobaltian for that engagement.
• No downstream damages. To the same extent, Cobaltian isn't liable for indirect or consequential losses: construction delays, change orders, rework, lost profit, or costs flowing from an error in an issued drawing that a review didn't catch.
• What the law won't let us limit, we don't. Some liability can't be excluded by law; nothing here tries to.

This cap only does its job if it's actually part of the deal: every engagement confirmation (the email or SOW under "Scoping and payment") names these terms and the date they're agreed as of, so they're expressly part of what you're agreeing to — not just a page that happens to exist.

If an engagement needs a different risk allocation — some do — raise it before work starts so it can be agreed in writing and priced for what it is.

An engagement works when both sides hold up their end. Yours:

• Send accurate, complete, current files. The review runs against what you send. Make sure it's the live package — current revisions, current register, current schedules — not last month's snapshot.
• Have the right to send them. If a package belongs to your client, clearing it for an outside review is your responsibility, not ours.
• Keep your own review process running. Engineering review, QA, and issue sign-off stay yours. A Cobaltian engagement adds a check; it doesn't stand in for one.
• Own your approvals. Anything the project, your client, or a regulator requires — permits, client QA gates, engineer-of-record sign-off — is yours to satisfy. An engagement with us doesn't satisfy any of it.
• Flag restricted material before sending. CEII-designated material, or anything your client or a regulator treats as restricted, gets flagged up front so handling can be agreed first — as the privacy policy asks.

Every engagement is scoped and quoted in writing before work starts — an engagement email or a short statement of work naming the package, the tier, the price, and the timeline. That written confirmation plus these terms is the deal; if the two ever disagree, the engagement confirmation wins.

• Reviews and scans are quoted up front from the package's size and state.
• Automation sprints are scoped from what a scan actually found — we don't quote a tool before knowing the problem. A scan never obligates a sprint.
• Retainers bill monthly at the agreed rate.
• Invoices are due net 30 unless the engagement confirmation says otherwise — timing is negotiable for larger sprints and retainers. If an invoice sits well past due, ongoing work can pause until it's settled.
• Out-of-scope work gets agreed first. Anything beyond the written scope is quoted and confirmed in writing before it's done — no surprise line items in either direction.

The split is the standard, fair one, stated plainly:

• Yours once paid for. The findings report, the workbook, the drawing-set markups, and any custom tool or script built for your engagement belong to you when the invoice is paid. Use them, change them, hand them to your team.
• Ours to keep. The general know-how — checking techniques, non-client-specific code patterns, and lessons learned across engagements. The generic automation logic, never your data, your drawings, or anything client-specific. (The privacy policy makes the same promise from the data side.)
• Open source stays open source. If a delivered tool builds on open-source components, those components remain under their own licenses.

How client files are handled — what they're used for, who sees them, how long they're kept, and how deletion works — is committed to in the privacy policy, and those commitments apply to every engagement under these terms. That page is the operative text; this section doesn't restate it, so there's one place to check, not two that can drift apart. If you need signed confidentiality terms — an NDA — put them in place before sending files; signed terms govern over both pages.

Either side can end an ongoing engagement — a retainer, or a sprint in flight — with reasonable written notice; email is fine. For retainers, "reasonable" means enough notice to wind down cleanly, and the engagement confirmation can pin it to a specific period.

Ending early doesn't unwind what's done: work performed up to the end date is invoiced and still due, and anything already paid for and delivered stays yours. A fixed-scope review that's underway is normally finished and delivered rather than cut off mid-stream — if you need to stop one anyway, you owe the work done to that point.

These terms, and every engagement under them, are governed by Texas law — Cobaltian is a Texas business working from Texas. There's no arbitration machinery or special venue clause hiding here: a dispute we couldn't resolve directly would go through the ordinary courts. We'd rather it never gets past a phone call.

This page describes Cobaltian's standard terms at today's size, and it will change as the business does — with the date at the top updated when it happens. A change never rewrites a deal already made: an active engagement runs under the terms that stood when it was agreed, and if anything material changes mid-retainer, active clients hear about it from us directly, not by diffing this page.