Registering a license

When you use Metalama for the first time it will automatically activate the trial mode which will work for a period of 45 days. To use Metalama beyond this period you will need to switch to Metalama Free or register a license key.

You can use all features of any preview of Metalama for up to 45 days after release without having any license registered.

Switching to Metalama Free

To switch to the Metalama Free license:

Install Metalama Command Line Tools as described in Installing Metalama Command Line Tools.
Execute the following command:
```
metalama license free
```

Registering a license key

To register a license for the current user:

Install Metalama Command Line Tools as described in Installing Metalama Command Line Tools.

Execute the following command:

metalama license register <LICENSE KEY>

Registering a license key manually

To register a license for a user manually:

Open the Metalama licensing JSON configuration file licensing.json. It is located in %appdata%\.metalama directory on Windows and in ~/.metalama directory on Linux and Mac.
Set the license key as the license value. If the file doesn't exist, it should contain the following content. (123-ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ is a placeholder for the actual license key.)
```
{
  "license": "123-ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ"
}
```

Registering a license key via an environment variable or MSBuild

The license key can be stored as a value of the MetalamaLicense MSBuild property. This allows for:

Configuring the license as a value of the MetalamaLicense environment variable.
Configuring the license in the source code repository using Directory.Build.props file.
Configuring the license in the .csproj project file.