Managing Licenses

This guide walks you through the entire lifecycle of a Quadrastack license: from purchasing securely on our website to activating it in your CLI and CI/CD pipelines.

1. Purchasing a License

Licenses are managed user the Account Dashboard.

Log in to your Quadrastack account.
Navigate to the Licenses tab (or go directly to /license).
Scroll to the "Purchase Licenses" section.
Select your desired tier (Pro or Business) and quantity.
Click Purchase to be redirected to Stripe's secure checkout.
Once payment is complete, you will be redirected back to the dashboard with a success message.

Note: After payment, you must generate your license keys in the Your Licenses section. Pro licenses require an email address, while Business licenses require a project name.

2. Viewing Your License Key

After purchase, your license key will appear in the "Your Licenses" table on the dashboard.

License Key Format: v1.eyJhbGci... (a long JWT string)
Validity: The table shows exact "Issued At" and "Expires At" dates.

Click the Copy button next to any license key to copy it to your clipboard.

3. Activating in CLI

To enable Pro/Business features (like unlimited concurrency, HTML reports, etc.) in your local environment, set the QUADRASTACK_LICENSE environment variable.

macOS / Linux

Add this to your shell profile (.bashrc, .zshrc, etc.):

export QUADRASTACK_LICENSE="your_license_key_here"

Then reload your shell:

source ~/.zshrc

Windows (PowerShell)

$env:QUADRASTACK_LICENSE = "your_license_key_here"

Verification

Run the following command to confirm the CLI recognizes your license:

quadrastack --license-info
# Output will display the license status, tier, and expiration date:

License Details:
  Tier:         PRO
  License ID:   4eccc5fb-4bde-4908-83c5-f1702635ddfc
  Owner:        assigned@company.com
  Organization: project
  Issued:       2026-01-18
  Expires:      2026-02-01
  Hash:         sha256:e474fb15b141
  Source:       env:QUADRASTACK_LICENSE

4. Activating in CI/CD

For Business tier licenses used in automated pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, etc.), the process is the same as local activation.

Securely add the QUADRASTACK_LICENSE as an environment variable or secret in your CI/CD configuration. The CLI will automatically detect the license when running in your pipeline.

5. Renewing Licenses

Quadrastack licenses do not auto-renew. To maintain uninterrupted access to Pro or Business features, you must purchase a new license before your current one expires.

Seamless Renewal

You do not need to remove your old license immediately. Quadrastack supports multiple licenses in the same environment variable, separated by a comma (,).

export QUADRASTACK_LICENSE="old_license_key,new_license_key"

Precedence Logic

When multiple licenses are detected, the CLI selects the active license based on the following priority:

Highest Tier: simple Business > Pro
Latest Issue Date: If multiple licenses share the same highest tier, the one issued most recently is selected.

This allows you to "stack" your new license alongside the old one in your CI/CD secrets or local profile without downtime.

Troubleshooting

"License Invalid or Expired"

If you see this error:

Check the expiration date on your dashboard.
Ensure you copied the entire string (it can be very long).
Verify no extra whitespace was added during copy-paste.

"Feature Not Available in Free Tier"

If you receive this warning even after purchasing:

Ensure the environment variable QUADRASTACK_LICENSE is set and exported.
Run echo $QUADRASTACK_LICENSE to confirm visibility.
Restart your terminal or CI runner to pick up fresh variables.