Check-in use case

[Ayamur0]

What would a use case for check in be?
I couldn't find anything in the docs and so far I didn't see a benefit to using check in.
From my understanding, I validate -> receive OVERDUE error -> check in -> validate now returns valid.
Or check in before validating / use the license object returned by check in.

For both "validate" and "check in" I have to communicate with the server, so why use "check in" over just "validate", is there a benefit to that?
While check in forces to check in every X time, I won't notice it's overdue until validating again, so at that point I have already communicated with the server and could confirm the license is active.

[KingEmma7]

If your app already validates online whenever it needs an access decision, and you don't need a separate check-in deadline, you can leave requireCheckIn disabled.

With check-in enabled, Keygen tracks two separate things:

• Validation checks whether the license meets its policy and returns meta.valid/meta.code.
• Check-in updates lastCheckIn and advances nextCheckIn. Validation doesn't advance that deadline.

One use is a periodic renewal requirement: for example, a policy with checkInInterval=week and checkInIntervalCount=2 requires renewal every two weeks. You can then react server-side to missed renewals: the validation guide lists license.check-in-required-soon and license.check-in-overdue webhooks. You don't have to wait for the user's next validation request to notice the missed check-in.

Your validate → OVERDUE → check-in → validate flow makes sense when overdue check-in is the failure being resolved. The second validation is still useful: a successful check-in returns the updated license object, not the full validation result. An expired or suspended license, or a machine/scope mismatch, can still fail validation.

So I'd enable it when you want that explicit renewal deadline and its events; otherwise online validation alone may fit your use case.