Capabilities (app, cli, mcp, chat)

Aseptic has four capabilities, which are what your account lets you use:

Capability	Surface	Cost
`app`	The desktop application	Free
`cli`	The `aseptic` CLI	Paid
`mcp`	The MCP server (for AI agents)	Paid
`chat`	The integrated copilot	Paid

The three paid ones are independent of each other: having one does not enable the others.

How they are enabled

If the project has sign-in configured (auth section), when you sign in to the desktop app at least once, Aseptic writes a non-secret summary of your capabilities to your machine (.aseptic/.runtime/entitlements.json). The CLI, the daemon and the MCP read it to enforce access.

Without the corresponding capability:

The CLI exits with code 5 and a message asking you to sign in with an authorized account.
The MCP over stdio exits with 5; over HTTP, the /mcp route responds 403.

In projects without sign-in there is no restriction: all surfaces work without gating.

See also