Install / Pro

Hydrate Pro — upgrade from Free

After this page: your licence is activated, Hydration Packs are available for import/export, and /hydrate-last returns a richer briefing via the Opus→Sonnet handoff workflow.

Prerequisites

Hydrate Free installed and working (hydrate doctor all-green). If not, follow the Free install first.
A Pro licence key. Keys start with hyd-lic-. Get one at gethydrate.dev/pricing, or register during the beta to lock in $5/mo forever:
```
hydrate register --edition=pro [email protected]
```
Registration emails the key within a few seconds. Pro keys issued during the beta are rate-locked even if you lapse and reactivate years later.

Activate the licence

hydrate license activate hyd-lic-<your-key>

This verifies the key offline (no outbound request) and writes ~/.hydrate/license.json. To confirm:

hydrate license show

Expected output:

Edition:   Pro
Email:     [email protected]
Issued:    2026-05-15
Status:    active

Then confirm doctor picks it up:

hydrate doctor

The License: line should now read Pro instead of Free.

What Pro unlocks

Hydration Packs

Packs are portable bundles of a project's canon, facts, and working memory. Share them as files or import them from teammates.

# Export your project's memory
hydrate pack create --project=my-project --name="sprint-12 state"

# Inspect before importing
hydrate pack inspect sprint-12-state.hpack

# Import (dry run first)
hydrate pack import sprint-12-state.hpack --dry-run
hydrate pack import sprint-12-state.hpack

Opus→Sonnet handoff workflow

Pro unlocks the /hydrate-last enhanced mode: when you start a session on a complex project, the briefing uses an Opus consolidation pass to surface the three most load-bearing decisions from prior sessions, then hands off to Sonnet for the rest of the session. This costs one Opus call per session start, billed against your Anthropic account. To opt out of the Opus pass:

hydrate config set briefing.use_opus=false

Plan tier controls

Pro users can set a budget tier for token generation:

hydrate plan show               # current tier
hydrate plan set --tier=pro     # or: max-5x, max-20x, payg

payg is pay-as-you-go — no monthly ceiling, billed per token. The default (pro) caps generation at the Pro monthly allowance.

Verify

hydrate doctor

The License: Pro line confirms activation. Then try creating a test pack:

hydrate pack create --project=default --name="test pack" --out=/tmp/test.hpack
hydrate pack inspect /tmp/test.hpack

You should see the pack metadata and a fact/canon count. Remove it when done:

rm /tmp/test.hpack

What changed on your machine

Path	Change
`~/.hydrate/license.json`	Activation record (key hash, edition, email, issue date)

No other files change at activation time.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
`hydrate license activate` says "key not valid"	Typo or key not yet issued	Wait 30 seconds after registration and retry
`hydrate doctor` still shows `Free` after activation	Server cache	`hydrate server restart` then re-run doctor
Pack import fails on "edition gate"	Free binary trying Pro feature	Confirm `hydrate license show` returns `Pro`; if not, re-run activate
Opus pass not firing on `/hydrate-last`	`use_opus` disabled or no Anthropic key	Run `hydrate providers` to confirm an Anthropic key is stored; run `hydrate login anthropic` if not

Next steps

Team install — share project memory with teammates
Enterprise install — join an organisation's Hydrate server
Claude Code integration — hook details and advanced flags