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github-actions[bot] edited this page Jun 4, 2026 · 2 revisions

Licensing

nitpik is free for personal, educational, and open-source use. Commercial use requires a subscription.

Free Tier

No license key is needed for:

  • Personal projects — your own code, side projects, learning
  • Open-source repositories — any repo with an OSI-approved license
  • Educational use — classroom, coursework, research

Just install and go. nitpik works at full functionality without a license key.

Commercial Subscriptions

For commercial use (proprietary codebases, company projects), subscribe at nitpik.dev. Two tiers — both unlock the same commercial-use license; pick the one that fits your situation:

  • Solo — €30/month or €300/year. For freelancers, indie developers, and single-person consultancies. Same product, just for one.
  • Team — €100/month or €1000/year. One flat fee for any team size — no per-seat charges, no usage caps.

Both tiers unlock the editor integration (LSP) and MCP server — these surfaces require an active subscription, unlike the standalone nitpik review CLI which works for free under the personal/OSS terms above. Everything else (all LLM providers, unlimited reviews, secret scanning, threat scanning, custom profiles) is shared with the free tier. Cancel anytime via the self-serve customer portal.

Tier choice is on the honor system — the CLI doesn't enforce it. Same model as JetBrains' individual vs. business licenses: pick the one that describes your situation accurately.

Verify compatibility first: nitpik's LLM provider integrations rely on a third-party open-source library, and provider support may change due to upstream updates outside of nitpik's control. Before subscribing, please verify that your chosen provider and model work correctly using the free unlicensed version. No license key is required — just install and run a review with your own provider API key. See LLM Providers for the full list of supported providers.

Activating a License

After subscribing, sign in to nitpik.dev/account and create an API key. Each key looks like nkp_live_… — it's shown once on creation, so copy it somewhere safe.

Store the key in your global config:

nitpik license activate nkp_live_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
nitpik license status   # verify activation

The key is saved to ~/.config/nitpik/config.toml.

In CI

Set the NITPIK_LICENSE_KEY environment variable instead:

export NITPIK_LICENSE_KEY=nkp_live_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In GitHub Actions:

env:
  NITPIK_LICENSE_KEY: ${{ secrets.NITPIK_LICENSE_KEY }}

Security: Always store the key as a CI secret — never hardcode it in pipeline files. You can revoke and re-issue keys at nitpik.dev/account at any time.

Managing Your License

nitpik license activate <KEY>   # store the key in the global config
nitpik license status           # show plan, entitlement type, expiry
nitpik license refresh          # force a fresh entitlement fetch
nitpik license deactivate       # remove the key and the cached entitlement

Subscription billing — invoices, plan changes (monthly ↔ yearly), payment method updates, and cancellation — is handled through the Polar-hosted customer portal accessible from nitpik.dev/account. Polar acts as merchant of record and handles all tax (VAT, GST, US sales tax) automatically; invoices are issued under Polar's name and tax ID.

How Verification Works

On each review, nitpik exchanges your API key with nitpik.dev for a short-lived signed entitlement (an Ed25519 JWT, valid for 7 days). The entitlement is cached at ~/.config/nitpik/entitlement.json and re-fetched only after it expires.

  • Per-run latency: one HTTPS round-trip to nitpik.dev per fresh CI runner, then no network calls until the cached entitlement expires.
  • Subscription lapses: the next entitlement fetch fails once your subscription becomes inactive, and the CLI downgrades to free-tier behavior (your existing cached entitlement keeps working until its 7-day window ends).
  • Cryptographic verification: the entitlement JWT is verified offline against a public key bundled in the nitpik binary. nitpik.dev can stop issuing entitlements but it cannot forge them.

Air-gapped or restricted-network CI

If your CI runners cannot reach nitpik.dev, download an offline token from nitpik.dev/account (30- or 60-day validity) and supply it via:

export NITPIK_OFFLINE_TOKEN=<paste-the-jwt-here>

When set, NITPIK_OFFLINE_TOKEN short-circuits the entire fetch path — the CLI verifies the token's signature and expiry locally and uses it as the proof of entitlement. Offline tokens cannot be revoked before they expire, so pick the shortest window your workflow allows and rotate them on the dashboard before expiry.

Related Pages

Getting Started

Using nitpik

How It Works

Security & Privacy

Deployment

Reference

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