How do updates arrive, and what changes when I stop renewing?

Updates

Muster checks for updates, downloads them in the background, and then waits for you.

How an update arrives

• The check runs at launch and every six hours after that.
• When a build is downloaded and waiting, a band appears in the app saying so. Before that band existed, the state lived only in a settings screen, and people who never opened that screen stayed on old versions without knowing there was a new one.
• The band can be dismissed per version. It comes back for the next release, and for a re-release of the same version.
• The update installs when you restart, because you clicked. See Why updates wait for a click.

What happens when you stop renewing

The licence is annual, and it renews until you cancel. Cancelling does not take the app away:

Stop renewing and the last version you downloaded keeps working, forever. What stops is the right to updates.

That is the whole difference between a subscription and a hostage. The app you paid for stays yours, offline, with no server deciding whether it may open.

What the subscription pays for

Keeping Muster in step with two CLIs that change every week — new flags, new transcript shapes, new session semantics. It is not rent on software already sitting on your machine.