## How Licensing Works [​](/content/docs/pro/installation/licensing/#how-licensing-works "Direct link to How Licensing Works"/index.html)

Rasa will look for your license in the env var `RASA_LICENSE`, which must
contain the content of the license key file provided by rasa.

You can set the `RASA_LICENSE` env var temporarily in your terminal, but it is recommended
to set it persistently so that you don't have to set it every time you run
Rasa.

- Bash
- Windows Powershell

```bash
## Temporary
dexport RASA_LICENSE=YOUR_LICENSE_STRING_HERE

## Persistent
echo "export RASA_LICENSE=YOUR_LICENSE_STRING_HERE" >> ~/.bashrc
## If you're using a different flavor of bash e.g. Zsh, replace .bashrc with your shell's initialization script e.g. ~/.zshrc
```

```powershell
## Temporary
$env: RASA_LICENSE=YOUR_LICENSE_STRING_HERE

## Persistent for the current user
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('RASA_LICENSE','YOUR_LICENSE_STRING_HERE','USER')
```

Then you can use the [`rasa` CLI](/content/docs/reference/api/command-line-interface/index.html) as usual, for example:

```bash
rasa init
```