Plans and limits
The plans and limits reference lists what each Athenode plan allows in a project, the size limits that are the same on every plan, and what happens when a project reaches a limit.
How a plan applies to a project
A plan belongs to a project. Each project is on one of four plans, Free, Solo, Team or Business, and the plan covers every member of that project up to the plan's number of members. A person who owns two projects can have one on the Free plan and one on the Team plan.
A new project starts on the Free plan. The owner buys a paid plan for the project, with monthly or annual billing, as Billing and plan changes describes. Prices are shown on the project's Plan & limits page and in the pricing section of the Athenode website.
A plan covers Athenode. You pay for your AI coding tool, and for any subscription it needs, separately.
Limits of each plan
| Limit | Free | Solo | Team | Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Members | 1 | 1 | 10 | 50 |
| Specifications | 100 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Agent setups | 1 | 5 | 10 | Unlimited |
| Skills per setup | 10 | 30 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Agents per setup | 15 | 30 | 50 | Unlimited |
| MCP servers per setup | 3 | 15 | 30 | Unlimited |
| Project tokens per member | 1 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| ToDo cards | 100 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Requests per minute from the CLI and your agents | 60 | 300 | 600 | 1,200 |
| Publishing to the setup library | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Priority support | No | No | No | Yes |
One more limit applies to you and not to a project. You can own up to 3 projects on the Free plan.
How each limit is counted
| Limit | What counts |
|---|---|
| Members | The owner, every editor and viewer, and every pending invite that has not expired. |
| Specifications | Every specification in the project's tree, in any status and at any depth. |
| Agent setups | Every setup in the project, including the project's copy of the standard Athenode setup. |
| Skills, agents and MCP servers per setup | The items in one setup. Each setup has its own count. |
| Project tokens per member | The tokens one member holds in one project. An expired token counts until it is revoked. The web app labels this limit CLI tokens. |
| ToDo cards | Every card in the project, including cards that are done or dismissed. |
| Requests per minute | The requests that the Athenode CLI and the Athenode MCP server make with the project tokens of one project, counted together for all members. Work in the web app is not counted. The web app labels this limit API requests per minute. |
| Free projects | The projects you own that are on the Free plan. Projects on a paid plan and projects you were invited to are not counted. |
What the Free and Solo limits mean for your work
A project on the Free plan holds one setup, which is its copy of the standard Athenode setup. An agent setup is a named bundle of what your AI coding tools work with: skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and setup files. On the Free plan you change that copy, and you take content from the setup library by merging an entry into it. Cloning a setup and adding a library entry as a new setup are possible on the Solo, Team and Business plans. The setup library describes merging.
The Free and Solo plans hold one member, the owner. Inviting other people needs the Team or Business plan, as Invite and manage members describes.
The Free plan gives each member one project token in the project. A project token is a personal access token that lets the Athenode CLI, and your AI agent through it, act on one project. On a paid plan a member can hold a separate token for each computer or pipeline, as Project tokens describes.
Publishing a setup to the setup library needs the Solo, Team or Business plan. Browsing the library and using its entries is possible on every plan.
Size limits on every plan
These limits are the same on all four plans.
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Specification title, summary, content and implementation plan | No length limit |
| Setup name | 200 characters |
| Setup description | 25,000 characters |
| Rules of a setup | 50,000 characters |
| Setup file | 50,000 characters |
| Setup file name | 255 characters: letters, digits, ., _ and - |
| Setup file summary | 500 characters |
| Setup file folders | 10 levels deep |
| Skill name and agent name | 1 to 64 characters: lowercase letters and digits, with single hyphens between them. Unique within the setup. |
| Bundle files of a skill | 500 files of up to 5 MB each. A skill holds 25 MB in total, with SKILL.md counted. |
| Library entry name | 200 characters. Unique across the setup library. |
| Library entry description | 25,000 characters |
| Library entry version note | 2,000 characters |
| Library entry tags | 10 tags of up to 30 characters each |
| ToDo card title | 200 characters |
| ToDo card description | 10,000 characters |
| Open questions on a ToDo card | No limit in the web app. 3 when an AI agent or the CLI creates the card. |
| First name and last name of an account | 100 characters each |
Time and rate limits on every plan
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Invites sent by one project | 10 per hour |
| Pending invite | Expires after 30 days |
| Project token expiry | 30, 90, 180 or 365 days, or no expiry |
| Link that confirms an account deletion | Valid for 20 minutes |
| Period in which signing in cancels an account deletion | 30 days |
What happens at a plan limit
A project at a limit keeps everything it has. Athenode refuses the one action that would go past the limit, and everything else keeps working.
In the web app, the action opens the Plan limit reached dialog. It names the limit and shows the current usage next to the maximum. The owner sees a button to upgrade to the next plan that lifts the limit. Other members see "Ask the project owner to upgrade the plan."
In the Athenode CLI and through the Athenode MCP server, the command or tool fails with an error that names the limit, the current usage, the maximum and the plan. The Athenode CLI reference gives the exit code and the fields of that error for scripts.
At the limit on requests per minute, the Athenode CLI waits and sends the request again, up to 3 times. If the request is refused each time, the command ends with an error. Run it again a minute later.
At the limit on free projects, Athenode creates no project. Delete one of your free projects or move one to a paid plan, then create the project again.
To lift a limit, the owner upgrades the project's plan. An upgrade applies immediately.
What happens to content above a limit after a downgrade
A project that moves to a lower plan keeps all of its content, its members and their project tokens, including what is above the new plan's limits. Everything stays usable. Adding more of a kind that is over its limit is refused until the project is back under the limit or on a higher plan.
Before a downgrade is scheduled, the web app lists each limit that the project exceeds on the new plan, with the usage and the new maximum.
See a project's plan and usage
Every member can open Plan in the project's sidebar to see the Plan & limits page. Changing the plan needs the owner role.
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Current plan | The project's plan and its subscription details. |
| Project limits | Each limit of the project as used and maximum, or Unlimited. A limit that is used up shows Limit reached. |
| Your limits | Your own project tokens in this project and the free projects you own. |
| Setup usage | The number of skills, agents and MCP servers in each setup of the project. |
| Plans | The four plans side by side with their limits and prices. |