v0.5.0-alpha — licensing scaffold

hooked on facets v0.5.0-alpha — licensing scaffold

Fifth alpha. The plumbing for selling this plugin as a commercial product via Easy Digital Downloads Software Licensing is now in place. Nothing changes for users today — soft enforcement is the default, the plugin works without a key — but the wiring for "buy a license → auto-updates → seat-counted activation" is shipped and tested.

📦 Download hooked-on-facets-0.5.0-alpha.zip · 🗺️ Roadmap

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🔑 What's new: licensing scaffold

The plugin now ships a complete EDD-style license client. Open the admin and you'll see a new License entry under System with a key input, status row, expiry, and seat count. Right now there's no store on the other end yet, so the panel sits politely waiting; once hookedonfacets.com flips on EDD + Software Licensing, this becomes a working "paste your key" flow.

No license required for v0.5.x. Enforcement defaults to soft: the plugin works, but the admin shows a dismissible notice pointing at the License panel. Strict gating is one constant flip away when it's time.

🔧 What's in the box

src/Licensing/ (new module):

• LicenseManager — single source of truth for license state. Stores key + status + expiry + seat count in wp_options['hof_license']. Daily revalidation cron with a STALE_AFTER skip so admin page loads don't hammer the store. Exposes is_licensed(), state(), activate(), deactivate(), revalidate().
• LicenseClient — thin EDD Software Licensing API wrapper. Normalizes activate_license / deactivate_license / check_license / get_version calls into a consistent {status, expires, expires_human, site_count, license_limit, error} shape.
• Updater — hooks pre_set_site_transient_update_plugins + plugins_api so WP's plugin updater asks the EDD store about new versions. 1-hour transient cache; busts on license state change.

REST endpoints (all admin-only):

Endpoint	Method	What
/wp-json/hof/v1/license	GET	Current state w/ fingerprint, status, expiry, seat count
/wp-json/hof/v1/license/activate	POST	Submit a key; persists the result
/wp-json/hof/v1/license/deactivate	POST	Clear locally + tell store

Configuration (set in wp-config.php per install):

Constant	Default	Purpose
HOF_LICENSE_STORE_URL	https://hookedonfacets.com	Where to send activation calls
HOF_LICENSE_ITEM_ID	unset	EDD Download ID this product matches (must set for real use)
HOF_LICENSE_ENFORCEMENT	soft	soft (notice only) or strict (gate features — future)
HOF_LICENSE_DEV_MODE	unset	Pretend every key is valid (CI / local dev)

Admin:

• New top-level License nav item under System (🔑 icon)
• LicenseSettings.jsx panel — status row with tone colors, key fingerprint, expiry, seat count, store URL, activate/deactivate buttons
• LicenseNotice (PHP) — dismissible per-user admin notice on unlicensed/expired installs. Suppressed on the HOF admin SPA itself; dismissal resets on plugin version bump so you see it again after upgrades

🆙 Upgrade from v0.4.0-alpha

Drop-in. No schema changes; nothing user-visible changes by default. After upgrade you'll see the new License nav item in the admin, and the dismissible notice on other admin pages. Both are silent in dev mode.

🆕 Site owners considering the commercial path

This release does not sell anything. The plugin is still free and the source is still public. v0.5 is the engineering work that enables a commercial release — when the store goes live, customers will configure HOF_LICENSE_ITEM_ID, paste their key, and the existing soft-notice machinery becomes the real licensing flow.

Still in the box

Everything from v0.4.0-alpha continues to work: ten public facet displays, three view facets (2D Slider, Ask, Visual DNA), Visual DNA v3 palette matching, admin CRUD with drag-reorder + validation, BYOK Anthropic key for Ask, the EDD-style update channel waiting for a store.

Feedback

Issues, PRs, "this didn't work for me" reports — all welcome.