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

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

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

By default, the license is installed 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 installing. If validation fails, the license is not installed and an error is returned.

License Status

Check the current license status:

kairos license status

This displays:

• License ID
• Licensed domain(s)
• Expiry date
• Machine binding status
• Feature entitlements

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.

Machine Binding

The license is cryptographically bound to the machine fingerprint using RSA-PSS signatures. A license issued for one machine will 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, not authoritative. Authoritative enforcement requires a licensed native build.

Next Steps

With a valid license installed, you can run your first evaluation.