Varlet

Crisis protocol

If you are thinking about suicide or are in crisis, call or text 988 (the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: free, confidential, 24/7), or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911. Outside the US, findahelpline.com lists the lines where you are.

This page describes how Varlet responds when someone expresses thoughts of suicide or self-harm, as California's companion chatbot law (SB 243) and New York's AI companion law (General Business Law Article 47) require us to publish.

Who it covers

Every conversation in Varlet: the chat with your manager and every teammate, and calls. The Wellbeing Coach, an AI coach you can talk things through with, follows it most closely.

What happens

  1. Detection. Every message you send is checked for words that can signal thoughts of suicide or self-harm. The

check runs in our own code, outside any AI model, so it works whatever a model says.

  1. A crisis card. When the check matches, the app shows a card at once with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

(call or text 988), the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741) and 911 for immediate danger, with buttons to call or text.

  1. The coach changes course. The Wellbeing Coach is trained to notice indirect signs too ("everyone would be

better off without me"). It stops whatever exercise it was doing, asks directly and kindly whether you are safe, gives the same lines, encourages you to reach a trained counselor now, and stays with you. When its reply names 988, the app shows the crisis card as well.

  1. Never harmful content. Our agents are instructed never to provide information about methods of self-harm or

suicide, and never to encourage it.

AI disclosure

Varlet's teammates are AI, not people. The Wellbeing Coach says so when a conversation starts, and the app repeats it at least every three hours of continued conversation. It is an AI coach, not a therapist, counselor or licensed professional; it does not diagnose or advise on medication.

Ages and places

Varlet is for adults 18 and over (Terms of Service). The Wellbeing Coach is not offered to people in Illinois, where state law limits AI support for mental health.

Records

We keep a count of how many times a crisis card was shown, with the date and whether your message or the coach's reply triggered it. The count holds no message text and no personal information; it is what California's annual report to its Office of Suicide Prevention asks for.

Questions

Write to support@zinklabs.dev. This protocol is reviewed whenever the laws above change.