License & Activation

Online Activation

1. Open Cerebion Rivet
2. Go to Settings → License
3. Under the Online License tab, enter your license key
4. Click Activate License — Rivet validates against license.cerebion.com and saves the key automatically

To move your license to a different machine, click Detach License on the current machine first, then activate on the new one. If you can't detach (hardware failure, decommissioned), contact support@cerebion.com to free the seat manually.

CLI / Headless Activation

For CI/CD pipelines and headless servers, set your license key as an environment variable — no GUI required:

# Linux / macOS
export RIVET_LICENSE_KEY=your-license-key-here

# Windows (cmd)
set RIVET_LICENSE_KEY=your-license-key-here

On first run, Rivet validates online and caches the result for 7 days at ~/.rivet/license_cache.json. Subsequent runs use the cache — no internet needed until it expires.

Store the key in your CI/CD platform's secret store (GitHub Actions Secrets, GitLab CI Variables, Jenkins Credentials) — never hardcode it in pipeline files.

Offline / Air-Gapped Activation

Offline licensing requires an Enterprise plan. The Offline License tab in Settings is disabled on Trial and Professional tiers.

Offline licenses are cryptographically signed with Ed25519 and hardware-fingerprinted to a specific machine — they cannot be copied to a different machine or tampered with. Each machine requires its own license file.

Step 1 — Get your device fingerprint

In Rivet, go to Settings → License → Online License tab and click Show Device Fingerprint. You can copy the fingerprint string or save it as a device-fingerprint.json file.

Email the fingerprint to support@cerebion.com along with your license key or order reference. Support will generate a signed license file and send it back.

The fingerprint contains only hardware identifiers (MAC address hash, architecture, hostname) — no personal data or file contents.

Step 2 — Upload the license file

Once you receive your license-[uuid].json file from support:

1. Go to Settings → License → Offline License tab
2. Drop the license-[uuid].json file onto the upload area or click to browse
3. Click Upload License File — Rivet verifies the signature locally, no internet needed

CLI / Headless

Set the path to the license file as an environment variable:

# Linux / macOS
export OFFLINE_LICENSE_FILE=/path/to/license-[uuid].json

# Windows (cmd)
set OFFLINE_LICENSE_FILE=C:\path\to\license-[uuid].json

Deploying to headless machines

The license file must exist on disk at the path set in OFFLINE_LICENSE_FILE. Common deployment approaches:

• Bake into machine image — include the file in your AMI, Docker image, or VM template at a fixed path (e.g. /etc/rivet/license.json). Set OFFLINE_LICENSE_FILE in the system environment. One-time setup, survives reboots.
• Deploy via secrets manager — store the file contents as a secret in AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, or similar. Add a provisioning script that writes the secret to disk on first boot before Rivet runs.
• Copy manually — for a small number of fixed machines: scp license.json user@host:/etc/rivet/license.json

The file never needs to change unless it expires or the machine is replaced.

License Cache

Rivet caches license validation for 7 days at ~/.rivet/license_cache.json. If the license server is unreachable, Rivet continues to operate normally until the cache expires. A warning appears in Settings after 3 days offline; at 6 days it becomes urgent.

Offline license files (air-gapped) are re-validated on every access — they are not cached.

License Types