Tiers and Limits

Reporails has two access modes: anonymous (no account, no setup) and signed in (free, GitHub Device Flow). The CLI auto-detects which mode you're in based on whether ails auth login has been run, and the diagnostic backend applies the corresponding limits.

Side by side

What the limits mean in practice

Hourly request rate. Each ails check run counts as one request. The anonymous limit covers casual use — five runs per hour is enough to iterate while editing a single file. Once you cross the limit, the response is a 429 rate_limit_exceeded with a CTA pointing at sign-in.

Per-request payload cap. The cap is the size of the analysis payload sent to the diagnostic backend (embeddings, structural metadata, file paths) — not the size of your instruction files on disk. A typical project sends well under 1 MB. Multi-MB payloads usually mean a very large root instruction file that should be split — see FAQ → polyglot monorepo.

Diagnostic detail. The mechanical and structural checks return full detail in both modes. The difference is in interaction and cross-file findings: anonymous gets counts per file, signed-in gets the file, the line, and the suggested fix.

Anonymous output shows the score, per-file counts, and a separate cross-file section that only counts the conflicts and repetitions per pair of files:

  ┌─ Main (1)
  │ CLAUDE.md  10 dir / 1 con / 1 amb · 71% prose
  │   ⚠       Missing tech stack declaration  CORE:C:0034
  │   ⚠       Missing MCP documentation  CORE:C:0027
  │     4 brief · 1 orphan
  │
  └─ 21 findings

  ── Cross-file ───────────────────────────────────────────

  ⚠  CLAUDE.md ↔ .claude/rules/git.md     — 2 conflicts
  ⚠  CLAUDE.md ↔ .claude/rules/python.md  — 1 repetition

  Line-level detail and fixes → ails auth login

Signed-in output folds cross-file findings back into the per-file list with the line, the message, and the suggested fix — so the cross-file section above is replaced by inline findings in each file:

  ┌─ Main (1)
  │ CLAUDE.md  10 dir / 1 con / 1 amb · 71% prose
  │   ⚠ L18    Conflicting commit-message format with .claude/rules/git.md:5
  │            Reconcile to a single source — keep one canonical directive.
  │   ⚠ L42    Repeated test-runner directive (also in .claude/rules/python.md:8)
  │            Move the shared directive to .claude/rules/ and remove the root duplicate.
  │   ⚠       Missing tech stack declaration — list languages, frameworks, and runtimes  CORE:C:0034
  │            Add: "Python 3.12, FastAPI, pytest" near the top of CLAUDE.md.
  │   ⚠       Missing MCP documentation — describe MCP server configuration if applicable  CORE:C:0027
  │            Add a "## MCP servers" section listing each server, transport, and trigger.
  │     4 brief · 1 orphan
  │
  └─ 23 findings

Within-file conflicts (one section in CLAUDE.md contradicting another section in the same file) render as regular findings in both modes — they're not separated out the way cross-file ones are.

When you cross an hourly limit, the normal output is replaced at the bottom of ails check with the assessment-box CTA. Anonymous mode points at the next-step command, signed-in modes point at GitHub issues so we can see your use case and raise the cap:

  ⚠  Server diagnostics unavailable.
  Anonymous limit hit (5/hr). Run `ails auth login` to raise it 5x
  Did you see an error? Let us know: https://github.com/reporails/cli/issues

  ⚠  Server diagnostics unavailable.
  Hit your hourly limit (200/hr) — file an issue with your use case so we can raise it
  Did you see an error? Let us know: https://github.com/reporails/cli/issues

The same shape renders for payload_too_large and atom_cap_exceeded.

How to sign in

ails auth login        # GitHub Device Flow — authorize in browser, exchange for API key
ails auth status       # show your current tier and a redacted key prefix
ails auth token        # print the full API key (for CI export)
ails auth logout       # remove stored credentials

ails auth login opens GitHub in your browser via the standard Device Flow; once you authorize, you're signed in. Credentials are stored in ~/.reporails/credentials.yml (chmod 0600 on POSIX; Windows logs a warning that NTFS ACLs are not auto-restricted, so secure the file manually if you're on Windows).

For CI, capture the key and set it as a secret:

ails auth token   # prints the key to stdout

Then add it to your CI provider's secret store and pass it as AILS_API_KEY (env) or via the GitHub Action's api-key input — see Configuration → Authentication.

Why two modes?

Anonymous mode exists so anyone can run ails check once or twice without setting anything up — useful for trying the tool. Signed-in mode exists for everyday use, where you want larger payloads, higher request rates, and the full per-finding detail.

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