Temporary accounts

A temporary account lets you, or a coding agent working for you, start running experiments on AX Cloud without signing up first. The CLI creates it in one command and signs itself in. The account lasts 24 hours. Claiming it within that window makes it a permanent account with all its work and remaining credit. If you don't claim it, it expires.

ax auth signup --temp-account

Creating a temporary AX account…

✓ Temporary account created.
✓ CLI signed in. Credential saved locally.

By creating a temporary account, you accept the Terms of Use: https://www.514.ax/terms

Warning: Your temporary account expires in 24 hours. Complete signup before then to access the web app, and permanently keep this account and all your work: ax auth signup --claim-account

The CLI refuses to create a temporary account while it is already signed in, while it holds a temporary account that has not expired, and after a temporary account has expired. It never creates one for you as a side effect of another command.

What a temporary account can do

A temporary account starts on the Basic plan with its $25 in free credit and the Basic plan's limits. It can do all experiment work from the CLI: create, validate, and run experiments, follow runs, query results, and save insights.

It cannot manage the organization. These commands refuse with Permission denied and name the claim command:

A temporary account has no web app sign-in. While it is temporary, every web app link the CLI prints, including the experiment URL after ax experiment run, is a claim link: opening it starts the claim and lands on that page once you finish.

The 24-hour window

The window starts when the account is created and never moves: running more commands, spending credit, or opening a claim link does not extend it. Commands run with a temporary account end with a warning line that counts down the time left:

Warning: Your temporary account expires in 18 hours and 42 minutes. Complete signup before then to access the web app, and permanently keep this account and all your work: ax auth signup --claim-account

ax auth whoami shows account: temporary, the time remaining, and the claim command. With --json, ax auth whoami and ax auth status add temporary: true, expires_at, expires_in, and claim_command. ax credit balance names the claim command too.

Claim the account

Run the claim command from the terminal that holds the temporary account:

ax auth signup --claim-account

Claim URL: https://app.514.ax/t/<TOKEN>
Valid for: 15 minutes (until 2026-10-02T01:48:38.304Z)
Open this URL in your browser to make your temporary account permanent.

The CLI opens the link in your browser; --no-browser only prints it. Each claim link works once and expires after 15 minutes, or when the account does if that is sooner. Treat it like a password: whoever completes sign-up through it owns the account and its work. If a link has been used or has expired, run the claim command again for a new one.

In the browser, sign up with email (and verify it), Google, or GitHub. The claim completes when sign-up does, and sign-up has to finish before the claim link expires. If it doesn't, run ax auth signup --claim-account again for a new link. The claim needs a new account:

• Signing in to an existing account from the claim page does not claim. The temporary account's work stays where it is; contact support to move it, and use ax auth login to sign the CLI in to the existing account.
• If the browser is already signed in to a permanent account, the page offers to sign out and continue the claim, or to continue to the account you're signed in to.
• Leaving before sign-up completes changes nothing. The account keeps working as a temporary account until its window ends.

What carries over

Claiming makes the same account permanent. Nothing is copied or moved:

• Experiments, runs, results, insights, and their ids and URLs stay the same.
• Unused free credit carries over. No new credit is added and no payment method is needed.
• Runs in progress keep running.
• The account-management restrictions lift, so you can add credits, invite teammates, connect integrations, and share.

After sign-up, the browser lands on the page the claim link pointed to, or on the experiments list.

The terminal after a claim

The terminal that created the account keeps working without a new sign-in. On its next command, the CLI switches to a terminal sign-in for the claimed account, prints the message below, and carries on with the command.

Your account is now permanent. This terminal stays signed in to <ORG> until <TIME> UTC (24 hours). To keep using it after that, run `ax auth login`.

• The terminal sign-in lasts 24 hours. It appears as "Terminal sign-in" under Settings → API keys, where you can revoke it early.
• It runs experiment work but not organization management. Run ax auth login to manage the organization from the terminal, or to keep using it after the 24 hours.
• The switch happens once, and only within an hour of the claim. After that, the CLI says the account has been made permanent and asks you to sign in with ax auth login.

Expiry and recovery

When the window ends without a claim, the account expires:

• New runs, claim links, and the temporary credential stop working, and runs still in progress are cancelled.
• The CLI prints that the account has expired and points to ax auth login. Claim links open an "expired" page.
• Signing up or signing in creates or opens a different, permanent account. It does not restore the expired one.

An expired account's work is kept, not deleted, for 30 days. To recover it, contact support. Support sends a recovery link, valid for 24 hours, that opens the same claim flow, so the account comes back as a permanent account owned by whoever completes sign-up. An expired account never becomes temporary again.

Free capacity

Temporary accounts run on capacity Fiveonefour funds. Before creating an account, the CLI solves a short proof-of-work challenge automatically, which can make signup take a few seconds. When free capacity runs out, signup or run submission is refused immediately with:

Free capacity is unavailable right now. Try again in a few hours.

To keep working without waiting, make your account permanent with `ax auth signup --claim-account`.

During signup, the second paragraph points to ax auth login instead. Nothing is queued: retry later, or claim the account and keep working on your own credit. Other limits, such as running out of credit or the Basic plan's run time limit, report the same way they do for any account.

Suggested: using temporary accounts from an agent

• Check ax auth status --json first. A temporary account reports temporary: true; reuse it rather than creating another.
• Ask the person you're working for before running ax auth signup --temp-account, because creating the account accepts the Terms of Use.
• Watch the warning line and tell the person how much time is left before it runs out.
• Give the person the output of ax auth signup --claim-account to open, and keep claim links out of shared logs, pull requests, and issues.
• Back off when you see the capacity message, instead of retrying in a loop.