Open source

Fountain is an open-source project. Managoat is one hosted instance of it. This page says what is open, what is not, and where each thing lives.

The names

Name	What it is
Fountain	The server, the CLI, the SDKs and this manual. The name of the project.
Managoat	The instance that the maintainer runs at `managoat.com`. It runs the same code that you can run.

The hosted instance has a different name so that "self-host Fountain" and "use Managoat" are two clear choices. The project is not renamed.

The licences

Part	Licence	What it means for you
The server (`apps/fountain`)	AGPL-3.0-or-later	Run it, change it, host it. If you host a changed version, your users have a right to your source.
`ee/` (credits, Stripe and the credit emails)	Elastic Licence 2.0	Free to run in your own instance. You may not offer it to third parties as a hosted service.
`cli/`, `sdk/typescript`, `sdk/python`, `sdk/elixir` and `sdk/swift`	Apache-2.0	Build on the API or ship a client in a closed product. Keep the required license and notices when you redistribute it.

The client parts are permissive on purpose. A connection to Fountain must never put a licence obligation on your application.

The copyleft has one target. A company that improves Fountain and runs it as a service owes those improvements to everyone else who runs it. The licence does not stop a commercial host, in competition with Managoat or not. It stops a private one.

The NOTICE file holds the third-party attribution.

Where things live

You want	Go to
The code, issues and pull requests	github.com/managoat/fountain
Your own instance	Self-host Fountain
The manual	This site, at `/docs`, on every instance. The markdown is in the repo under `docs/`.
The reasons behind the design	`decisions/` in the repo. The ADRs are not on this site.
The hosted instance	managoat.com
The CLI	`brew install managoat/tap/fountain`, or the CLI reference.
The TypeScript SDK	`@managoat/fountain-sdk` on npm, or the TypeScript reference.
The Python SDK	`fountain-agent-sdk` on PyPI, or the Python reference.
The Elixir SDK	`fountain_sdk` on Hex, the `sdk/elixir` source, or the Elixir reference.
The Swift SDK	The `sdk/swift` source, or the Swift reference. SwiftPM reads the `Package.swift` at the repository root.

There is no separate project website. The manual you read now is the project site, and the repo README is its front page. One copy of each stays correct.

What the hosted instance adds

Nothing that is not in the repo. Managoat runs the release image with the ee/ parts turned on, credits enabled, and the egress broker on. The configuration reference lists every switch, so an instance of your own can match it or not.

To contribute

Read CONTRIBUTING.md and CLAUDE.md in the repo. The second file is the contributor guide, and coding agents read it too.