Licensing

Kairos Substrate requires a valid license for authoritative evaluation (CLI and native library targets). The license is machine-bound. It is tied to the hardware fingerprint of the machine where it runs.

Machine Fingerprint

Before requesting a license, generate your machine’s fingerprint:

kairos fingerprint

This outputs a hex string identifying your hardware. Send this fingerprint to Ananke Labs to receive a license key file.

For JSON output (useful for automation):

kairos fingerprint --json

Activating a License

After you receive a .key file from Ananke Labs, install it:

kairos activate --license /path/to/your-license.key

By default, the command installs the license to ~/.kairos/license.key. To specify a custom install location:

kairos activate --license /path/to/your-license.key --target /opt/kairos/license.key

The activate command validates the license against your machine’s fingerprint before installation. If validation fails, the command does not install the license and returns an error.

License Status

Check the current license status:

kairos license status

This displays:

• Status: VALID or INVALID
• Mode: production or evaluation
• Customer
• License ID
• Tier
• Licensed domain(s)
• Expiry date and days remaining
• Machine binding status (the fingerprint of this machine)

For JSON output:

kairos license status --json

To check a license at a non-default path:

kairos license status --license /opt/kairos/license.key

License File Location

The default search path for the license file is ~/.kairos/license.key. All CLI commands that require a license (evaluate, observe) accept a --license flag to override this path.

System-wide License

For shared or server installs where multiple users or services need access to the same license, install to a system-wide path:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/kairos
sudo kairos activate --license /path/to/your-license.key --target /etc/kairos/license.key

The runtime automatically searches for a license in this order:

1. KAIROS_LICENSE_FILE environment variable
2. ~/.kairos/license.key
3. /etc/kairos/license.key

No additional configuration is needed. The runtime automatically finds a license at /etc/kairos/license.key.

Machine Binding

A license issued for one machine does not validate on a different machine. If you need to move a license to a new machine, contact Ananke Labs with the new machine’s fingerprint.

WASM and Advisory Mode

WASM builds skip license enforcement entirely. They operate in advisory mode. Evaluation results are informational and not authoritative. Authoritative enforcement requires a licensed native build.

Next Steps

After you install a valid license, run your first evaluation.