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Starlight

Starlight is a focused workflow tool with an Electron-based interface and a TouchDesigner backend. It's sold as a perpetual license — pay once, use forever.

This page covers Starlight-specific activation, supported operating systems, where your key lives, and offline behavior.

How Starlight fits into TEC ID

Starlight is two pieces working together — a desktop app you launch (Electron) and a TouchDesigner backend that runs alongside it. When you launch Starlight, the desktop app checks in with TEC ID to verify your license. Once verified, the TD backend boots and you're up and running.

You only activate once — the desktop app handles the conversation with TEC ID on behalf of both pieces.

If you're new to TEC ID, start at Getting started.

Buying Starlight

  • Standard price: $799 USD, one-time.
  • Founders price: $599 USD for the first 200 people on the waitlist.
  • Trial: 14 days, fully featured, no card required.

Buy at [starlight.tec.design/buy]. You'll receive a welcome email with a magic-link and a STAR-... license key. See Billing for invoices and refund details.

Activating Starlight

  1. Install Starlight from the installer on your TEC ID dashboard (or from your welcome email).
  2. Launch the app. The first run brings up a license screen.
  3. Paste your license key. It starts with STAR-. Copy it from your TEC ID dashboard under Licenses → Starlight.
  4. Click Activate. Starlight talks to TEC ID and either activates this computer or tells you all seats are in use (see Devices if so).

The license screen disappears and Starlight starts its TouchDesigner backend.

[Screenshot: Starlight first-launch license screen]

Supported operating systems

  • Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit, x86-64)
  • macOS 13 Ventura or later (Intel and Apple Silicon)

Starlight bundles its TouchDesigner backend, so you don't need to install TouchDesigner separately. Linux is not supported.

Where your license lives on disk

After activation, Starlight stores a small, encrypted token in your user profile so it can launch without re-asking TEC ID each time. The location depends on your operating system:

  • Windows: under %APPDATA%\Starlight\
  • macOS: under ~/Library/Application Support/Starlight/

You don't need to back it up. If you reinstall, your key from the dashboard is all you need.

The token is encrypted so that copying the file to another computer doesn't give that machine an activation — the encryption is bound to your user account on this computer.

To remove the token (and any other Starlight state) when you're cleaning up a machine, release the seat from your dashboard first, then delete the Starlight folder from the path above.

What happens offline

Starlight is built to keep working without a constant internet connection.

  • Online check-ins run silently in the background, roughly once every 24 hours when you're online.
  • Short outages (hours, a couple of days) have no effect.
  • Extended offline use — after about 7 days without a successful check-in, Starlight requires you to reconnect. You'll see a warning a day or two before the cutoff.

If you're heading to a location with no internet, launch Starlight once with internet first to reset the offline timer. For known multi-week offline projects, contact us — we can grant a longer offline window.

Updates

New Starlight versions appear in the Downloads section of your TEC ID dashboard. Starlight will also notify you in-app when an update is available. Your existing license key works for any version within your update window (one year by default, extendable with a renewal).

Troubleshooting Starlight

Most activation issues are handled by Troubleshooting. A few Starlight-specific points:

  • "Backend failed to start" — this is the TouchDesigner side of Starlight, not the license. Check the log file referenced in the error and contact support if it doesn't resolve.
  • "License OK but app won't open" — try fully quitting (force-quit on macOS, end task on Windows) and relaunching. Starlight occasionally needs a clean restart after an OS update.
  • "Activation succeeded but I'm still seeing the license screen" — make sure your computer's clock is correct. See Troubleshooting → clock skew.