What can I do with pqcc? What's the catch?
There's no catch. Here's exactly what you can do.
Yes. npx pqcc gives you a complete governance dashboard for one project at a time. No account, no registration, no license key, no time limit, no feature gates. Personal projects, commercial projects, government projects, educational projects — all fine.
Yes. You can run pqcc on your company's internal network and share it with your team. Your teammates accessing it over your intranet is permitted use. There is no seat limit for internal use.
Yes. A consulting firm using pqcc to govern client projects is permitted. Your consultants can run it, your project managers can review state files in it, your team can use it daily. What you can't do is host pqcc as a product for your clients to use directly — that crosses from "using a tool" to "offering a service."
Yes, as long as it's for your organization's internal use. An engineering team, a department, or a whole company running pqcc on an internal server for their own people is exactly how we expect teams to adopt it.
Three things:
1. Don't redistribute it. You can't repackage pqcc and distribute it as your own product, include it in a product you sell, or make it available for download from your own site.
2. Don't offer it as a service. You can't host pqcc and let people outside your organization use it over the internet — whether you charge for it or not. Running it for your team is fine. Running it for other people's teams is not.
3. Don't reverse-engineer it. You can't decompile, disassemble, or extract the source code.
That's it. Three restrictions. Everything else is permitted.
The pqdx protocol — the schema, the spec, the file format — is an open standard under CC-BY-ND 4.0. That's a separate license from pqcc. You can build your own tools that read and write pqdx state files. You can implement the protocol in any language. You can create domain profiles. The protocol belongs to everyone. pqcc is our implementation of it.
That's what piqued.cc is for. The hosted platform gives you portfolio intelligence across all your projects, team workspaces, shared views, and collaboration features. pqcc gives you depth in one project; piqued.cc gives you intelligence across all of them.
Always. Your state files are standard pqdx YAML. Export anytime, use them anywhere — including with competing tools. We don't lock your data in. The pqdx protocol is open precisely so your governance data is never held hostage.
We'll send you a written notice explaining the issue. You have 30 days to fix it. If you don't fix it within 30 days, the license terminates. We're not trying to catch anyone out — we're trying to protect the tool from being cloned and resold.
Not today. When our team platform (Collabynt+) launches, we plan to make the pqcc source code publicly available under the Business Source License (BSL 1.1). That means you'll be able to read the code, verify how it works, and contribute improvements — you just won't be able to host it as a competing service. Seven years after each release, the code converts to Apache 2.0 (fully open source).
Some of our tools are MIT open source right now with no restrictions at all:
Packaged (pqgd) — context curation for AI. Zero dependencies, one Python file. MIT, public repo.
pqvl — headless state file validation for CI/CD. MIT.
pqsq — CLI queries against state files. MIT.
pqdc — the bundle that installs everything. MIT.
These are free, open source, and will stay that way. Fork them, embed them, sell products that use them — the MIT license means no restrictions.
Internal deployment: Permitted under the free license, no special agreement needed.
Data processing: We offer a standard DPA for GDPR and regulatory compliance. Contact legal@piqued-ai.com.
Subprocessors: Published at https://piqued.cc/subprocessors. We provide 30 days' notice before adding new subprocessors.
Data ownership: You own your data. We don't use it for AI training. We don't sell it. Full details in our Privacy Policy.
Paid tiers: When you need portfolio views, team workspaces, or org-level governance, piqued.cc has plans designed for teams and enterprises.
Piqued AI, LLC. We're a Delaware company focused on making AI collaboration auditable and trustworthy. pqcc is one tool in the pqdx ecosystem — a governance protocol, 26 tools, and a platform for practitioners who believe that trust is evidence, not intention.
legal@piqued-ai.com for licensing questions.
privacy@piqued-ai.com for data and privacy questions.
security@piqued-ai.com for security concerns.
This FAQ summarizes the Piqued AI Proprietary Free-Use License in plain language, effective April 1, 2026. If there's a conflict between this FAQ and the license text, the license text governs.