Connect Plate.

Set up with your agent.

Choose Starter or Pro and your agent on the home page, then copy the generated instructions. They install Plate, connect MCP and verify the tools, and they preserve your existing agent settings.

Starter needs no license: the MCP server, briefs, catalog, asset resolve, source checks, before/after pairs, capture, inspection and the two kits all work as soon as Plate is connected. Pro adds the design systems, the nine complete implementations, project assembly, recorded review and the cloud library.

Activate Plate Pro.

Start with the full Pro setup so your agent installs Studio and the paid tools. If Starter is already installed, the instructions upgrade it while keeping your Plate data.

Set up Plate Pro

Your license key appears in the Polar customer portal after purchase. Open a private terminal and run:

python -m plate_toolkit activate --browser

Open the private local page it prints. Keep your key out of chats, screenshots and project files. Plate validates it directly with Polar.

Use the portal link in your receipt

Manual Pro installation.

Optional: the setup instructions on the home page already do this for you. If you would rather install by hand, use Python 3.11 or later in an isolated environment. Download the installer, then run:

For local screenshot capture, install Playwright and its browser:

python -m pip install playwright
python -m playwright install chromium

Print the configuration for your agent using python -m plate_toolkit config claude, config codex or config cursor. Merge it with the existing MCP configuration, then restart your agent.

Open your Studio.

Plate Studio has two parts that share one license.

Online: start the project

Studio signs you in with Google. A free account shows your plan, the Starter setup for your agent and the library previews. Plate Pro is bought from the account, $89 once, and is recognised automatically afterwards; buyers from before accounts existed are matched by the verified email on their receipt. With Pro you write a brief for a website, game or motion piece, pick a direction and copy the agent prompt. Saved briefs live in your Plate cloud, up to 50, and you can edit or delete them from any browser you sign in from. Sessions last eight hours; Sign out ends them. Existing buyers can still open Studio with their license key under Advanced.

Local: review every revision

With the full Pro toolkit installed, run:

python -m plate_toolkit studio

Local Studio opens in your browser from a private one-run address. Keep the terminal running. It holds each project’s brief, facts to preserve, specialist workflow and the real before/after frames your agent records. Compare revisions, view frames full size and export a self-contained report. Project code stays in its folder; local records never upload and are separate from the online saved briefs.

Your first project.

“Use Plate to redesign this project. Keep the real content and functionality. Improve the composition, materials and interaction. Capture desktop and mobile, inspect the result, then revise it.”

On Starter your agent works from the two kits and its own implementation, using asset discovery, local capture, image inspection and the finishing tools. Plate Pro adds the design systems, the complete implementations and persistent project review. In both cases your coding agent performs the implementation and the visual judgment, using your own model credits.

Create an editable project.

With Pro active, ask your agent to call plate_create_project. It takes a project name, a destination directory that does not exist yet, your brief, and the facts you want preserved. It copies a complete implementation — source, assets and licence files — into that directory and returns a short manifest with the index path, file count, preserved facts and the review steps still to do.

It refuses to write into an existing directory and never overwrites your work. What lands there is a working starting implementation with demo content. Your agent then replaces that content with yours; the tool does not brand your project by itself, and some implementations still load fonts or libraries from the internet.

Continue across projects.

Ask your agent to explore Plate’s online library, or save a project brief for your next session. Cloud access uses your activated license. Only the title and brief you choose to save are uploaded.

The cloud preview supports 50 saved briefs, up to 12,000 characters each, and 120 requests per hour. Your repository stays on your computer.

Licensing.

The Plate toolkit itself is released under the MIT licence. Plate Pro v1 is a separate commercial licence: one payment, v1 updates, and use in your own and your clients’ projects. It is a software licence, not a subscription and not model credits — your agent supplies those.

Example and kit assets keep their own licences, which ship alongside the files and are copied into any project you create. Keep those notices in place when you redistribute the result. Some example material is licensed for local use only and is not part of the published library.

Troubleshooting.

Run python -m plate_toolkit doctor with the interpreter used for installation. If capture reports a missing browser, run python -m playwright install chromium in that environment. If activation fails, check your Plate license in Polar and your internet connection. No merchant API token is needed.