Help¶
FAQ¶
Do I need a model / API key?
No, not for most of what CortexBuild does. Rendering your rules into your AI
tools, conformance scoring, and the recurrence ledger all run with no model
at all. A model is only involved if your AI tool uses its own access to
execute the rendered workflow, or if you explicitly opt in to CortexBuild's
own orchestrator with CORTEXBUILD_LLM=1 and your own provider key. See
How it works — models and your keys.
Does my code leave my machine? Not by default. See Security & privacy for exactly what is sent, to where, and when.
Which AI tools does CortexBuild work with? Copilot, Claude Code, Codex CLI, and Cursor today — CortexBuild renders rules and agent personas into each tool's native format. See Supported languages for the language/framework side of the same question.
What happens when my licence lease lapses?
The signed lease renews automatically online; run cortexbuild auth refresh
to renew explicitly before a long offline stretch. A licence that is absent
or has ended warns you in your AI tool's response before it blocks anything.
See Install options & licensing.
How do I undo onboarding or an upgrade?
Both are reversible. cortexbuild upgrade --rollback restores your repo
byte-identically to before an upgrade. For onboarding, the files CortexBuild
writes live under .cortexbuild/ and the files it renders into your AI
tools are clearly marked as CortexBuild-owned — remove .cortexbuild/ and
the rendered files to fully undo it. See
Upgrade: preview, apply, roll back.
Troubleshooting¶
| Symptom | Fix |
|---|---|
command not found: cortexbuild in your AI tool, but it works in your terminal |
Your AI tool launched a non-interactive shell that didn't load your PATH changes. Put the install location on the shell's non-interactive startup file. See Set up in your repository for the per-shell detail. |
| Worked yesterday, not found today in a new session | Same cause as above — a one-off PATH fix only affected that one shell session. Make it durable in the shell's startup file. |
license required on a command |
Run cortexbuild auth activate --key <token> --url https://license.cortexbuild.dev, or cortexbuild auth status --json to see why an existing licence isn't verifying. |
device seat limit exceeded |
You've hit your device cap. Free an old machine's seat (cortexbuild auth deactivate on that machine), or ask your admin to reassign the licence. |
A licence that will not verify (trusted: false) |
Reinstall: pip install --upgrade --force-reinstall cortexbuild-core --find-links https://dist.cortexbuild.dev/index.html, then re-check with cortexbuild auth status --json. |
| Activation network error | Confirm access to https://license.cortexbuild.dev; a corporate proxy may need allow-listing. |
Telemetry shows LOCAL-ONLY / no collector |
Nothing is wrong — telemetry always records locally first. Run cortexbuild telemetry configure to also report to your organisation's collector. |
Support¶
Your CortexBuild administrator manages licences, device seats and your
organisation's admin-portal access. For anything else, use the Feedback
screen in the admin portal, or cortexbuild feedback submit from the CLI
(--kind bug for something not working, --kind improvement for a
suggestion) — run cortexbuild feedback submit --help for the full set of
flags.
Never send an activation token or an API key by email or chat. If one has been shared somewhere it shouldn't have been, ask your administrator to issue a replacement immediately.