Activations

An activation records that a license is being used somewhere – a website, a device, a user, or a server instance. The plan's activation type controls what each activation represents.

Activation Types

Type	Tracks	Identifier example	Normalisation
domain	Websites	example.com	Protocol, www., and path stripped. Lowercased
device	Computers, phones, IoT	MacBook-Pro-ABC123	Kept as-is
seat	Individual users	user@company.com	Lowercased
instance	Server / container instances	prod-api-01	Kept as-is

Normalisation happens server-side in the API. A customer's app can send https://www.Example.com/path and it's stored as example.com – so the same site can't accidentally consume two activation slots.

How It Works

The customer's software (or a license-check plugin in your Joomla extension, WordPress plugin, desktop app, etc.) talks to LicenseDock through three API calls:

Endpoint	Purpose
POST /licenses/activate	Register a new activation
POST /licenses/validate	Check the license is still good (run on app start, periodically, or before features that need it)
POST /licenses/deactivate	Remove an activation, freeing a slot

Activation is idempotent – calling activate twice with the same identifier returns success without creating a duplicate.

Activation Limit

Each plan has an Activation Limit. 0 means unlimited. When the limit is reached, the API returns:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "ACTIVATION_LIMIT_REACHED",
    "message": "Activation limit reached.",
    "activation_limit": 5,
    "activations_used": 5
  }
}

The customer needs to deactivate one of their existing activations (from your app or the customer portal) to free a slot.

Activation Record

Each activation row holds:

Field	Notes
Identifier	Normalised based on activation type
Name	Optional friendly label – set this from your app to help customers identify activations in the portal
IP Address	IP of the request that activated
Activated At	Timestamp

Admin Override

Admins can add or remove activations directly from Components → LicenseDock → Licenses → Edit. Adding bypasses the activation limit so support can help customers without forcing them to deactivate first.

For Developers

Building license-check into your software? Start with the API reference:

• Activate
• Deactivate
• Validate