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Selling a domain pack on Carina Hub

This guide is for authors who want to publish free community packs, premium paid packs, or Carina-certified packs on hub.carinaai.uk.

Payment is for maintained Hub distribution, updates, and optional certification. Pack source may remain MIT; buyers pay for convenience and support, not a proprietary kernel license.

Pricing tiers​

TierPriceWho maintainsBadge
free£0AuthorCommunity
premiumAuthor sets price (ex VAT)Author + Hub billingPremium
certifiedFree or premiumVERLOX reviewCarina-certified

Revenue split (premium packs)​

Default split on each sale:

PartyShare
Author70%
VERLOX (Carina)20%
Platform fee10%

Configure defaults with HUB_PACK_AUTHOR_REVENUE_SHARE_BPS, HUB_PACK_CARINA_REVENUE_SHARE_BPS, and HUB_PACK_PLATFORM_FEE_BPS on the Hub server.

Payouts (v1): sales are recorded in the Hub database. VERLOX pays authors monthly by manual bank transfer after invoice reconciliation. Stripe Connect automation is planned for a follow-up release.

Tax/VAT: list prices ex VAT unless your Stripe account is configured for tax-inclusive checkout. UK B2B customers may provide a VAT number on invoice.

Publish a free pack​

carina pack publish ./my-pack

Requirements:

  • Valid pack.json (see Creating packs)
  • At least one knowledge .md file
  • No .env or secrets in the tarball
  • CARINA_HUB_TOKEN or SKILLS_HUB_PUBLISH_KEY for production Hub

Free packs install with:

carina pack install my-pack

List a premium pack​

  1. Publish the pack tarball (same CLI as free).

  2. Ask VERLOX ops to set Hub metadata on skill_packs:

    • pricing_tier = 'premium'
    • price_gbp_cents (e.g. 1999 for £19.99 ex VAT)
    • Optional stripe_price_id or env STRIPE_PRICE_PACK_<SLUG>

  3. Buyers click Buy on the Hub pack page. Stripe Checkout completes.

  4. Webhook checkout.session.completed grants a license token.

  5. Buyer saves token to ~/.carina/pack-licenses.json (Hub UI can fulfill after redirect).

  6. carina pack install <slug> sends the license on download.

Premium install without a license returns HTTP 402 and a checkout URL.

Carina-certified packs​

Certified packs pass VERLOX review for quality, security boundaries, and eval coverage. They may be free or premium.

  • Badge: Carina-certified on Hub (distinct from community verified official packs).
  • Certification does not change the MIT kernel license.
  • Contact [email protected] to request certification review.

Author dashboard (API v1)​

Full UI is deferred. Authors with a publish API key can query sales counts:

curl -s -H "X-Api-Key: $CARINA_HUB_TOKEN" \
  "https://hub.carinaai.uk/api/author/packs?author=Your%20Name"

Response includes sales_count per pack from pack_sales.

License storage​

After purchase, licenses live in:

~/.carina/pack-licenses.json

Example:

{
  "licenses": {
    "my-premium-pack": {
      "packName": "my-premium-pack",
      "token": "pack_abc123...",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "purchasedAt": "2026-06-14T12:00:00.000Z"
    }
  }
}

The Hub webhook also stores tokens server-side in pack_licenses for validation.

What buyers get​

  • Tarball download from Hub while license is valid
  • Updates to the published version on Hub (license is per pack name, not per version pin; major breaking changes may require a new product listing)
  • No Scout or Carina Cloud subscription included

What is not included​

  • Legal advice for regulated deployments
  • Custom SLAs (see Carina Enterprise)
  • Automatic npm private registry (use @carina/pack-* npm publish separately if needed)

Hub operator env vars​

HUB_STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_...
HUB_STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_...
HUB_CHECKOUT_SUCCESS_URL=https://hub.carinaai.uk/?purchase=success
HUB_CHECKOUT_CANCEL_URL=https://hub.carinaai.uk/?purchase=cancel
STRIPE_PRICE_PACK_MY_PREMIUM_PACK=price_...   # optional per-pack Stripe Price ID
HUB_PACK_AUTHOR_REVENUE_SHARE_BPS=7000
HUB_PACK_CARINA_REVENUE_SHARE_BPS=2000
HUB_PACK_PLATFORM_FEE_BPS=1000

Webhook endpoint: POST /api/webhooks/stripe/packs