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Amends decision 3 of 0076 (wave 3 owns the licensing row of 0077).

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Context

Pro packages and on-prem installs need licences that expire, carry seat and machine limits, and can work offline. The owner’s answers PK8, PK13, PK15 and EN6 (mem L458–461, L679, 2026-10-20) chose Keygen for the licence store and a small verifier that we write ourselves.

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Decision

  1. Keygen holds licences. Keygen holds the licences, the entitlements, the seat and machine limits, the expiry, and the signed offline licence files.
  2. We write two things. @stackra/licensing is the verifier. A billing-to-Keygen webhook keeps licences in step with the subscription. The signing key is held in Infisical KMS.
  3. Lifecycle (PK8). Billing webhooks create, renew and revoke licences from the first customer.
  4. Soft enforcement (PK13). An expired licence gives a warning, then a read-only admin mode after a grace period. Data is never lost.
  5. No phone-home (PK15). Installs never call home. A connected on-prem install may opt in. Compliance is a periodic signed report.
  6. On-prem entitlement (EN6). On-prem reads its entitlements from the licence file.

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Consequences

  • The licence is a file an on-prem customer can verify without a network.
  • A revoked licence stops new seats, but it never deletes data.

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Enforcement

planned — @stackra/licensing verifies signatures and expiry in its tests; the billing webhook is covered by a contract test.

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Alternatives

  • Our own licence store: rejected; Keygen covers it.
  • Phone-home checks: rejected by PK15.

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Supersedes and sources

Supersedes: none. Amends: 0076 decision 3. Sources: owner answers PK8, PK13, PK15, EN6 (stackra-decisions-2026-10-19.md L458–461, L679, 2026-10-20). Closes gap B35.