Apply a license key
The license key is how the Enterprise plan unlocks CAT: set once on a machine, every CAT tool on it runs without signing in, offline, and unattended. Here is how to set it in each tool, what it is not, and where it lives.
What the key is — and is not
The license key belongs to the Enterprise plan (and its trial). It came by email — from the trial request, or from us after the license agreement — and looks like 42800B3FH804525-0C-1P93C2B09E-10-7114C17B6E (not a real one). Treat it as a secret: it is the thing that unlocks CAT.
It is not any of these, which you may also hold:
| Used for | Where | |
|---|---|---|
| License key | unlocking Enterprise — no sign-in, offline, unattended | set once per machine and account, this page |
| Portal account (sign-in) | Starter, Professional, Team | CAT Studio’s sign-in, or CAT_PORTAL_TOKEN on the command line |
| Personal access token | signing in on the command line with the account | the CAT_PORTAL_TOKEN environment variable, Team plan |
| Paddle subscription / receipt | paying for Professional or Team | your account page; nothing to enter into CAT |
A Team or Professional customer never has a key; an Enterprise customer never needs the token.
Set the key
The Settings page → License Key: paste the key, press Set Key. Studio signs you out of the portal account if you were signed in — the key is the identity now — and shows Enterprise as the plan.
catcli instance --setLicenseKey "42800B3FH804525-0C-1P93C2B09E-10-7114C17B6E"
catcli instance afterwards shows the plan and the key’s validity — see instance.
Set-CatInstance -LicenseKey '42800B3FH804525-0C-1P93C2B09E-10-7114C17B6E'
Get-CatInstance # shows the plan and the key
See Set-CatInstance.
import justcatit as cat
cat.set_instance("42800B3FH804525-0C-1P93C2B09E-10-7114C17B6E")
print(cat.get_instance())
See set_instance.
The key is checked before it is stored; a genuine key is stored even when it is not yet valid or already expired — what it unlocks is decided every time CAT runs, so a renewal key can be set ahead of time. A mistyped key is refused with the reason.
Where it lives, and for whom
One store per machine and Windows account: %APPDATA%\CAT\.catconfig (~/.config/CAT/.catconfig on Linux), shared by all four tools. Two consequences:
- every user of a shared machine sets the key once for themselves;
- a pipeline agent, a scheduled task or a SQL Server Agent job runs under its own account — set the key under that account, or from a secret in the pipeline step; from CAT 3.0 an unattended run without it stops before any test runs. See Integrations.
An empty key removes it — catcli instance --setLicenseKey "", Set-CatInstance with no key, cat.set_instance("") — and the tools go back to sign-in.
Related
- Get a CAT license — plans, trials, buying.
- Integrations — the key in pipelines and schedulers.
catcli instance·Set-CatInstance·set_instance· CAT Studio settings