Tiers & Pricing

Overview

codegen is available in three tiers. All tiers use the same binary and the same rule engine, the tier controls which features are unlocked, not which version of the engine you run.

Community: Free

For: Open-source projects, personal experiments, evaluation.

License: Free, no time limit. No commercial use.

The Community tier includes the full rule engine. There are no artificial rule count limits, no watermarks in generated output, and no expiry. The only restriction is commercial use.

Professional: $7 / month

For: Individual developers building commercial software.

License: Per-user, non-transferable. Covers one person across all their machines.

Everything in Community, plus:

TUI diff viewer

Before codegen writes any file, the TUI diff viewer shows a side-by-side comparison of the current and proposed output. You approve or reject changes interactively. This is the --dry-run flag elevated to a first-class workflow.

codegen --config ... --input ... --diff

Catches regressions before they hit version control. Particularly valuable during rule development, when output shape is still being refined.

VS Code DAP debugger

Step through LuaU rule scripts in VS Code using the Debug Adapter Protocol. Set breakpoints in .luau files, inspect node values, and trace execution through the json.decode / json.encode boundary.

The debugger attaches to the running engine process. No external debug server. No port configuration. Works in any VS Code workspace that has the codegen extension installed.

See VS Code DAP Debugger for setup instructions.

Local persistence

The engine caches parsed AST data and rule outputs across runs. On a 200-header project, cold parse takes ~2s; subsequent runs that touch only changed files take ~80ms.

Persistence is stored in .codegen/cache/. Add it to .gitignore. The cache is content-addressed and safe to delete at any time.

Value proposition: If Professional saves you 10 minutes of debugging per month, one misgenerated file caught by the diff viewer, one rule bug stepped through in the debugger, it costs less than the time you saved.

Team: $24 / seat / month

For: Engineering organizations that ship production software.

License: Per-seat, organization-managed. Seats are assigned via the team dashboard.

Everything in Professional, plus:

CMake integration

codegen integrates as a CMake target. Generated files are listed as build outputs, triggering regeneration automatically when annotated headers change:

find_package(codegen REQUIRED)

codegen_rule(
    RULE      ToString
    CONFIG    .codegen/rules/ToString/ToString.config.yaml
    INPUT_DIR ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/include
    OUTPUT    ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/generated
)

target_sources(mylib PRIVATE ${CODEGEN_OUTPUTS})

When a header is modified, CMake detects the dependency and re-runs the relevant rules before compiling. The “forgot to regenerate” class of CI failure is eliminated.

Shared preamble and grouping libraries

Teams frequently need the same grouping logic across multiple rules, e.g., “always route to the directory named after the entity’s top-level namespace.” The Team tier supports a preamble_lib and grouping_lib config key, pointing to shared LuaU modules that can be required from any rule in the workspace:

version: 1

output:
  language: cpp

preamble_lib: .codegen/lib/standard_preamble.luau
grouping_lib: .codegen/lib/namespace_routing.luau

Version-control these libraries alongside your rules. Code review them. Reuse them across every rule in the repo.

Priority support

Direct response SLA. Bug reports from Team customers are triaged within one business day.

Comparison table

Feature	Community	Professional	Team
Full rule engine	✓	✓	✓
Commercial use	✗	✓	✓
TUI diff viewer	✗	✓	✓
VS Code DAP debugger	✗	✓	✓
Local persistence / caching	✗	✓	✓
CMake integration	✗	✗	✓
Shared preamble/grouping libs	✗	✗	✓
Priority support	✗	✗	✓
Price	Free	$7/mo	$24/seat/mo

Frequently asked questions

Can I evaluate the Professional features before buying? Yes. A 14-day trial of Professional is available from the license activation page. No credit card required.

Does a Team seat cover the same person across multiple machines? Yes. A seat is per-person, not per-machine.

What happens if I stop paying? The engine reverts to Community-tier behavior. Your rules, configs, and generated files are unaffected.

Is there an academic or OSS project discount? OSS projects (public repository, OSI-approved license) can request a Professional license at no cost. Contact support with a link to your repository.

Can the Team tier be used in air-gapped environments? Yes. See License Activation for the offline activation protocol.