License Keys & Rate Limiting: DevForge Goes Pro

Today we're rolling out devforge-license — a shared license key validation and rate limiting system — across the entire DevForge CLI tool ecosystem. This marks our transition from a pure open-source project to a sustainable, tiered product.

What's Shipping

The devforge-license package (installable via GitHub) is now integrated into 7 of 11 CLI tools, with the remaining 3 coming this week:

How It Works

Every CLI command now calls require_license() before executing. Here's what that means in practice:

# On a fresh install — free tier, no setup needed
$ schemaforge convert input.prisma --to drizzle
✓ Schema converted (42 uses remaining today)

# Free tier limit hit — upgrade prompt
$ schemaforge convert input.prisma --to drizzle
Free tier limit reached (50/50 uses today).
Upgrade to Pro: devforge.dev/pricing.html
Or wait until tomorrow when your free tier resets.

# Activate a Pro key
$ devforge license activate RH-PRO-XXXX-XXXX
✓ License activated: Pro tier (unlimited)

Three Tiers

Free tier resets daily — that's 500 combined free operations across all 11 tools every day, more than enough for personal use, experimentation, and CI testing.

Technical Design

We designed the license system with developer experience in mind:

• Offline-capable — JWT-based validation works without internet. License keys use RS256 signatures verified locally.
• 24-hour grace period — If your license server can't be reached, the CLI keeps working for 24 hours.
• SQLite rate limiting — Per-tool, per-day counters stored in ~/.devforge/. No telemetry, no phoning home for usage tracking.
• Environment variable support — Set DEVFORGE_LICENSE_KEY for headless CI environments.

# In CI or Docker
$ export DEVFORGE_LICENSE_KEY=RH-PRO-XXXX-XXXX
$ deploydiff plan main..feature
✓ Infrastructure diff generated

What This Means for Existing Users

If you're using our tools today: nothing changes. All tools remain fully functional on the free tier — 50 uses per tool per day. No features are gated behind the license. The only difference is you'll see a clean usage counter after each command.

This lays the foundation for us to sustainably maintain and improve all 11 CLI tools. Revenue from Pro subscriptions goes directly into:

• Dedicated maintenance and bug fixes
• New feature development
• Comprehensive documentation and tutorials
• Community support

Also Shipping Today: envault Encrypt/Decrypt

Alongside the license rollout, Envault (envault 0.5.0+) now includes encrypt and decrypt commands — letting you encrypt individual environment values with AES-256 before committing them to version control:

# Encrypt a sensitive value
$ envault encrypt DB_PASSWORD
✓ Encrypted: enc:A5G8...

# View encrypted .env with a decryption helper
$ envault decrypt --inline

This pairs naturally with the license system — CI pipelines can use Pro-tier license keys to automatically decrypt environment variables during deployment.

Try It Today

We're excited to take this step. The ecosystem has grown from 1 tool to 11 over the past few months, and this sustainability model ensures the best is yet to come.

— The DevForge Team