P-004 · RINGMASTEROPERATED BY LUNA TECH LLC · SEATTLE, WAHOST · RINGMASTER.LUNA-TECH.CO
GUIDE

Installation & licensing

System requirements

  • macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
  • Apple silicon (M-series)
  • Around 2 GB of free disk space, plus whatever your local models need if you run them
  • A network connection for hosted providers and for license activation, though once activated, Ringmaster runs offline

Editions

Ringmaster comes in two builds:

  • Direct: signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, downloaded from your portal. This build updates itself (see Updates).
  • App Store: sandboxed and distributed through the Mac App Store, which handles its updates. It does not include the built-in updater.

The two are otherwise the same product. Most people running CLI agents and local model servers will want the Direct build.

Installing

  1. Sign in to your portal at ringmaster.luna-tech.co and download the latest build. Downloads are tied to your licensed account; the portal mints a short-lived download link on demand.
  2. Open the downloaded disk image and drag Ringmaster into your Applications folder.
  3. Launch it. Because the Direct build is notarized but downloaded outside the App Store, macOS shows a one-time confirmation the first time you open it. Click Open.

If you want to confirm the download, the portal publishes a SHA-256 for each build; compare it against your file before opening.

Signing in and activating

The first time you launch Ringmaster on a Mac that isn't licensed, it offers to activate without your having to go looking: an Activate Ringmaster panel opens automatically, and a banner with Sign In & Activate remains on the launcher until this Mac is licensed. The same controls live in Settings → License, which is also where you manage your license afterward. The prompt is an invitation, not a wall: you can dismiss it with Maybe Later and still use single-agent runs, validation, review, and replay.

Wherever you start from, there are two parts to getting licensed: signing in to your account, and activating this Mac.

  1. Sign in. Enter your account email and password. If your account has two-factor authentication enabled, you'll be prompted for a six-digit code. Your password is used only to sign in; it is never stored on the device.
  2. Activate this device. Once signed in, the Your Licenses section lists the licenses on your account, each showing its tier and how many devices it's activated on (for example, 2 of 5 Macs). Click Activate This Device on the license you want to use here.

Ringmaster then caches a signed license token in ~/Library/Application Support/Ringmaster/. That token is what's checked at launch, so the app keeps working without a network connection and never blocks startup waiting on one.

What a license unlocks

Some capabilities are always available, with or without a license:

  • Single-agent stage execution
  • Validation
  • Review gates and promotion
  • Replay
  • Searching your run history and finding similar runs
  • Browsing your decision history
  • Importing a workflow package

A license unlocks the rest:

  • Multi-agent execution: parallel, race, consensus, and specialist modes
  • Advanced metrics, cost trends, budgets, and the trust score
  • Report export
  • The eval harness (ringmaster eval and ringmaster dataset)
  • Automated repair loops
  • Exporting a workflow package
  • Custom-script validators (Direct build only)

If you try to run a workflow that uses a gated mode without the entitlement, Ringmaster stops before running anything and tells you exactly what's needed, with a link to Settings → License. It never starts a run it can't finish.

License states

The License tab shows your current state at a glance:

  • Licensed: token valid and recently refreshed.
  • Licensed (offline): token valid, but Ringmaster hasn't been able to reach the server lately. It keeps working through a grace window defined in the token.
  • Evaluation: a valid evaluation-tier license.
  • Expired, Suspended, Invalid, Unlicensed: the gated features turn off; the rest of the app keeps working. The tab explains what to do, and surfaces a copyable request ID you can include if you contact support.

Moving to a new Mac

Activations are counted against your seat total. To free a seat, open Settings → License → Deactivate This Mac… on the machine you're leaving. That releases the activation slot so you can activate another device. If you hit your activation limit, deactivate a machine you no longer use, or contact support.

Where Ringmaster keeps things

  • Application support: ~/Library/Application Support/Ringmaster/ holds the cached license token, app metadata, and custom-endpoint profiles.
  • Keychain: API keys and credentials live in your macOS Keychain, never in plain files.
  • Workspaces: run history and artifacts live in each workspace's own .ring directory, alongside the work they describe.