Crossword Generator

What this site is

Crossword Generator (crossword.texs.org) is a free tool for building and solving crossword puzzles, made by Tex Jernigan as part of the texs.org family of projects. This policy describes what information the site handles and why.

Information we collect

• Account details. If you sign in, we collect your email address (used to send a one-time login code) and, optionally, a display name and avatar. Accounts are shared across texs.org projects.
• Session cookie. Signing in sets a cookie on the .texs.org domain so you stay logged in here and on other texs.org sites. We don't use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.
• Saved puzzles. When you're signed in, the puzzles you save, including drafts and their earlier versions (History), are stored with your account so you can open them on any device. When you're signed out, your work stays in your own browser (localStorage).
• Puzzles you publish. Publishing a puzzle makes its grid, clues, title, and the author name you enter publicly visible in the Showcase.
• Solving progress. Your progress on puzzles you solve is stored in your own browser, not on our servers.
• API keys and usage. If you create an API key, we store a one-way hash of it (never the key itself), the name you gave it, its permissions, and when it was last used. We also keep a daily count of API calls per account, broken down by endpoint, response status, type of client, the website a call came from, and country. That count doesn't record IP addresses, individual requests, or what they contained.

How we use it

Only to run the site: authenticating you, displaying puzzles you publish, remembering your work, and keeping the site and the API within their usage limits. We don't sell your information, show ads, or share your data with anyone except the service providers below.

Service providers

• Vercel hosts the website and measures how quickly pages load, using anonymous, cookie-free performance data.
• Hetzner hosts the server behind word search, Auto-Fill, and clue lookups. It sees your IP address, which is used to apply rate limits and appears in short-lived server logs.
• Supabase stores account data, saved and published puzzles, and API keys.
• Brevo delivers login-code emails.
• Stripe processes membership payments. Card details go directly to Stripe and never reach our servers.
• Google powers AI clue suggestions (Gemini). When you request AI clues, the answer word is sent to Google's Gemini API; no personal information is included.

Your choices

You can use the generator and solve puzzles without an account. To have your account or published puzzles removed, email tex@texs.org and we'll take care of it.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date above will be updated. Meaningful changes will be noted on this page.

• 2026-09-27. Puzzles you save while signed in are stored with your account, not only in your browser as this page previously said. The policy now also covers API keys and usage counts, and lists Hetzner, Stripe, and Vercel's performance measurement among the service providers. The terms of use now say plainly that clues you write aren't added to the shared clue database.
• 2026-09-16. AI clue suggestions have been generated by Google (Gemini) since July 2026, not Anthropic as this page previously said; the terms of use now also describe how clues from published puzzles may join the shared clue corpus.