Telemetry

Prefect collects anonymous usage telemetry to help improve the product. This page explains what data is collected, how it's used, and how to opt out.

What We Collect

Prefect SDK telemetry tracks anonymous usage patterns to understand how developers use the product. We collect:

Events Tracked

The SDK tracks milestone events in the "Quick Start Funnel":

• first_sdk_import - When Prefect is first imported in an interactive terminal
• first_flow_defined - When you define your first flow
• first_flow_run - When you successfully run your first flow
• first_deployment_created - When you create your first deployment
• first_schedule_created - When you create your first scheduled deployment

Each milestone event is only sent once per installation.

Server Telemetry

When running a Prefect server, anonymous heartbeat data is sent every 10 minutes to help us understand server deployment patterns. This data includes:

Server telemetry is disabled automatically when PREFECT_SERVER_ANALYTICS_ENABLED=false.

What We Do NOT Collect

We respect your privacy. Prefect telemetry never collects:

• User identity, credentials, or API keys
• Code, flow definitions, or task parameters
• Flow names, task names, or deployment names
• File paths or directory structures
• Environment variables or secrets
• Error messages or stack traces
• IP addresses or network information
• Any personally identifiable information (PII)

How to Opt Out

You can disable telemetry using any of these methods:

Environment Variable

# Prefect-specific setting
export PREFECT_SERVER_ANALYTICS_ENABLED=false

# Industry standard DO_NOT_TRACK
export DO_NOT_TRACK=1

Prefect CLI

prefect config set PREFECT_SERVER_ANALYTICS_ENABLED=false

Automatic CI Detection

Telemetry is automatically disabled when Prefect detects a CI environment. We check for common CI environment variables including:

• CI
• GITHUB_ACTIONS
• GITLAB_CI
• JENKINS_URL
• TRAVIS
• CIRCLECI
• BUILDKITE
• TF_BUILD (Azure DevOps)
• CODEBUILD_BUILD_ID (AWS CodeBuild)
• BITBUCKET_COMMIT

First-Run Notice

The first time you import Prefect with telemetry enabled in an interactive terminal, you'll see a brief notice:

Prefect collects anonymous usage data to improve the product.
To opt out: PREFECT_SERVER_ANALYTICS_ENABLED=false or DO_NOT_TRACK=1
Learn more: https://docs.prefect.io/concepts/telemetry

This notice only appears once and only in interactive terminal sessions (not in scripts, CI, or non-TTY environments).

Local State

Prefect stores telemetry state files locally to track which events have been sent:

~/.prefect/.sdk_telemetry/
├── device_id      # Anonymous UUID for this installation
├── milestones.json # Tracks which milestone events have been sent
└── notice_shown    # Marker that the first-run notice was displayed

Questions?

If you have questions about Prefect's telemetry practices, please open an issue on GitHub or reach out to us at [email protected].