Licence key

Where the key comes from

Purchase, payment, invoicing and cancellation are handled by the payment service Polar, which acts as the seller. You see the licence key immediately after purchase in the order confirmation and in the Polar customer portal. The monthly subscription starts with a 14-day trial; the annual subscription has no trial. You manage the subscription, payment method and cancellation in the Polar customer portal. If the subscription ends or a payment fails, the key is disabled there.

There is no free tier inside the software: without a valid key no tool runs. The trial period of the monthly subscription is the way to try it out.

Where the key goes

If you install via the bundle file in Claude Desktop, you enter the key in the installation dialog; Claude Desktop passes it to the server as an environment variable on start-up. If you install via npm, you have three options – the first one that applies wins:

1. Environment variable LAYOUTBRIDGE_SPM_LICENSE_KEY, in Claude Desktop in the server's entry under "env".
2. A file containing the key, whose path is given in the environment variable LAYOUTBRIDGE_SPM_LICENSE_FILE.
3. The file license.key in the configuration folder – Mac®: ~/Library/Application Support/layoutbridge-spm/, Windows®: %USERPROFILE%\.layoutbridge-spm\. The key only, no other text.

A key added or changed later takes effect immediately; no restart is needed. The individual steps are in the installation guide.

Activation, re-check, grace period

On the first tool call after setup, the server activates the key for this workstation with the Polar licence service. After that it checks the key at most once every 24 hours; as long as a valid result younger than 24 hours exists, no connection is made – a restart alone does not trigger a check.

If the licence service cannot be reached – no network, service outage – LayoutBridge keeps working for 14 days from the last valid check, retries at most hourly and appends a note to every reply saying when the grace period ends. After that the tools are locked until the next check succeeds. There is no grace period for an expired, invalid or disabled key.

What is transmitted – and what stays on your computer

On every check the server sends the licence key and a randomly generated identifier of this workstation (of the form layoutbridge-3f7a1c05) to the licence service (Polar, USA); your IP address is transmitted as a technical necessity. No computer name and no user name is sent. If you set a readable name with LAYOUTBRIDGE_SPM_INSTANCE_NAME, that name is sent instead of the identifier. Document contents never leave your computer.

The key itself is neither stored nor logged. The server keeps the last check result in the file license-state.json in the configuration folder (different location via LAYOUTBRIDGE_SPM_LICENSE_STATE): a fingerprint of the key – never the key itself –, status, time of the last check, time of the last valid check, expiry date, activation identifier, name of the verification method and the message text. No e-mail address, name or customer number is stored. The same folder holds the file instance-name with your workstation identifier. Both files are readable by your user account only. Everything else is in the privacy policy for the software.

Without a valid key

Every tool then replies with ok: false and error.kind: "license". The message says in plain words which case applies:

• missing – no key was found in any of the three places; error.details names the location where it was expected.
• expired – the subscription has ended or a payment failed; renew in the customer portal.
• invalid – the key is unknown to the licence service or has been disabled; check for typos and spaces.
• wrong product – the key belongs to a different product.
• not verifiable – the licence service could not be reached and the grace period has ended; check the network connection, the next attempt happens automatically.

Adobe® InDesign® is not contacted in this case; the event is written to the server log, and the message includes the support address and the address of the licence terms.

Moving to another computer

Because a licence can be active on one workstation only, release it on the old computer before moving – no InDesign®, no AI application needed, in Terminal or PowerShell:

npx layoutbridge-spm --deactivate

The command reports in plain words whether the release succeeded and deletes the local check result. The same key can then be set up on the new computer. If the old computer is no longer available, release the activation yourself in the Polar customer portal or write to support. After a release in the customer portal, the old computer reports at its next check that the key is no longer valid there – this is intended, not an error. The command requires Node.js (steps 1 and 2 of the installation guide) and looks for the key in the same places as LayoutBridge. With the installation package, Claude Desktop keeps the key and the command does not find it – store it as license.key first (step 4 of the guide) or write to support.

Log files and error messages

For every tool call the server writes one line to a log file on your computer – Mac: ~/Library/Logs/layoutbridge-spm/, Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.layoutbridge-spm\logs\, different location via LAYOUTBRIDGE_SPM_LOG_DIR. Recorded are time, tool, command, duration, success or error kind and the names of the parameters passed; values only where harmless. Text from your documents is not recorded – the character count stands in its place. File paths stay readable, your home directory is replaced by ~. The licence key is never logged.

Logs older than 30 days are deleted by the server on start-up (LAYOUTBRIDGE_SPM_LOG_KEEP_DAYS; 0 disables deletion). LAYOUTBRIDGE_SPM_LOG_LEVEL switches logging off (off) or extends it for troubleshooting (full – then all parameters appear verbatim and paths include the user name; set it back to basic afterwards).

When a tool reports an error, the server replaces the home directory with ~: /Users/sample/Magazines/Image.jpg becomes ~/Magazines/Image.jpg. Which file is meant remains clear; your user name is no longer included.

Support

Questions and error reports go to the address on the product page. Helpful: tool name, exact error text, time, InDesign® version and operating system. Never send us your licence key – we do not need it, and it belongs on your workstation only.