fix(core)!: PX2-R — registration becomes an unlock, not a gate

README.md

@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ Requires **Node ≥ 22** and ~1.5 GB of free disk on macOS, Linux, or Windows. B
 - **More on the way** — the supported list keeps growing, and a PR to add your agent is welcome; see [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md).
 - **Interactive setup** — `--interactive` is a plain-text flow; `--wizard` is the full terminal TUI.
 - **Defer downloads** — `--no-warmup` waits until first use. A failed component download never fails setup; init reports what's not ready with the exact fix and still completes.
-- **One free account** — the tools need an activated install, so `init` closes by pointing at `wigolo register`. `wigolo login` signs in a machine you've already got an account for. Diagnostics work without either. See [account & telemetry](#account--telemetry).
+- **No account required** — every tool runs on a fresh install with no sign-up at all. `init` closes by naming what a free account would *add* (sync, marketplace, higher pacing and watch limits); `wigolo register` takes it when you want it. See [account & telemetry](#account--telemetry).
 
 `init` is unattended by default, so it's safe in scripts and CI, and any setup problem surfaces right here in the per-component report, before your agent's first call. **Search, fetch, crawl, extract, cache, and find-similar work with no API key.** Check it's healthy anytime:
 
@@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ wigolo isn't a free stand-in for the paid tools — it's built to match them. It
 - **Built for agents.** One MCP call fans out many queries across many engines in parallel, which a serial host tool-loop can't replicate. Every result carries transparent per-result scoring, and output is budget-aware.
 - **Honest output.** Stale cache, failed fetches, degraded backends, and truncation are surfaced in the result. When a bot-protected page can't be read, you get a labeled `blocked_by_challenge` failure, not a challenge shell returned as content.
 - **$0 per query, free to re-query.** Default search talks to public engines through direct adapters; the reranker and embeddings run on-device. Every response is cached, so asking again is instant and costs nothing.
-- **Private by default.** Your queries and target URLs reach the engines and sites you're asking about — that's the product working. Nothing else about your work leaves: cache, embeddings, models, and config stay under `~/.wigolo/`, and no third party sees them unless you explicitly opt into an LLM for synthesis. [Full egress list](docs/privacy-security.md#network-egress).
+- **Private by default.** Your queries and target URLs reach the engines and sites you're asking about — that's the product working. Beyond that: no page content, URLs, or credentials leave your machine; usage stats do, off with one flag. Cache, embeddings, models, and config stay under `~/.wigolo/`, and no third party sees them unless you explicitly opt into an LLM for synthesis. [Full egress list](docs/privacy-security.md#network-egress).
 
 Here's what one real result looks like, dissected. It includes the failed engine and the weak result, because those are part of the answer too:
 
@@ -301,10 +301,17 @@ flowchart TD
 
 ## Account & telemetry
 
-The ten tools need an activated install. `npx wigolo register` creates a free account from
-an email address and a mailed sign-in code — no password, no card, nothing to buy. Five
-verbs own it, separate from `wigolo auth`, which is about signing in to *websites* through
-the browser engine:
+**wigolo runs fully without an account — registering only adds to it.** All ten tools work
+on a fresh install, on every surface, with no sign-up. What an account unlocks:
+
+- sync — your cache, settings and watches across machines
+- marketplace — publish and install skills and plugins
+- higher pacing and watch limits
+- managed cloud runs, when they land
+
+`npx wigolo register` creates one from an email address and a mailed sign-in code — no
+password, no card, nothing to buy. Five verbs own it, separate from `wigolo auth`, which is
+about signing in to *websites* through the browser engine:
 
 ```bash
 npx wigolo register      # create the account and activate this machine
@@ -314,12 +321,16 @@ npx wigolo account       # summary, grants, telemetry state, export, delete
 npx wigolo logout        # clear the local credential only
 ```
 
-Activation is verified offline against a signed token on disk, so ordinary runs never call
-the service and a network outage cannot de-activate you. Diagnostics are never gated:
-`doctor`, `verify` and `warmup` run on a machine that has never registered.
+Once you have registered, the sign-in is verified offline against a signed token on disk, so
+ordinary runs never call the service and a network outage cannot cost you the unlocks.
+`register --headless` is the agent-assisted path: an agent mails itself the code and
+finishes with `wigolo register --code`, so nothing ever waits on a prompt.
+
+The honest one-liner, and the same words the CLI and your agent see: **no page content,
+URLs, or credentials leave your machine; usage stats do, off with one flag.**
 
-**Usage and reliability telemetry is on by default**, which is a change in 0.3.0 — earlier
-releases sent nothing. It is six counters and no seventh: a tool ran (which one, which
+**Usage and reliability telemetry is on by default** for a registered install, which is a
+change in 0.3.0 — earlier releases sent nothing. It is six counters and no seventh: a tool ran (which one, which
 surface, whether it worked, how long as a coarse bucket), a tool failed (its error
 *class*), a fetch was blocked (the registrable domain and why), a fetch escalated a tier,
 a search engine failed (its error *class*), and a daemon's uptime as a bucket. Every field
@@ -392,7 +403,7 @@ The full guide covers per-symptom fixes, a "what still works when X fails" map,
 <details>
 <summary><b>Free? What's the catch?</b></summary>
 
-No catch by design. The expensive parts (ranking, embeddings, the browser engine) run on *your* hardware, so there's no per-query cost to recover and no reason for a meter. It's sustained by donations, and the AGPL license legally prevents a switch into a closed hosted product. Since 0.3.0 the tools do need a free account — an email address and a mailed code, no card — which is what makes [usage and reliability telemetry](#account--telemetry) attributable; there is still nothing to buy.
+No catch by design. The expensive parts (ranking, embeddings, the browser engine) run on *your* hardware, so there's no per-query cost to recover and no reason for a meter. It's sustained by donations, and the AGPL license legally prevents a switch into a closed hosted product. You don't need an account either — every tool runs on a fresh install. A free account (an email address and a mailed code, no card) unlocks sync, the marketplace and higher limits, and is what makes [usage and reliability telemetry](#account--telemetry) attributable; there is still nothing to buy.
 
 </details>
 

docs/cli.md

@@ -162,28 +162,44 @@ Five verbs, separate from the management commands above because they concern you
 rather than this machine's setup. Not to be confused with [`wigolo auth`](#auth), which
 manages site sign-ins for the browser engine.
 
-All ten tools are gated on an activated install. Diagnostics are not: `doctor`, `verify`
-and `warmup` run on a machine that has never registered, so a broken install can always be
-diagnosed. Everything that reaches a tool — the MCP server, the REST daemon, the
-interactive shell, a one-shot tool command — refuses with the same line until you activate:
+**No tool is gated on an account.** All ten run on a machine that has never registered, on
+every surface — the MCP server, the REST daemon, the interactive shell, a one-shot tool
+command — and so do `doctor`, `verify` and `warmup`. Registering *unlocks* things instead:
+sync across machines, the marketplace, higher pacing and watch limits, and managed cloud
+runs when they land. An unregistered install is told that exactly once, in a footer under a
+tool result that already succeeded, and never again.
 
-```text
-wigolo needs an account — run `wigolo register` to create one (already have one? `wigolo login`).
-```
+Telemetry, in the words every surface uses: no page content, URLs, or credentials leave
+your machine; usage stats do, off with one flag (`WIGOLO_TELEMETRY=off`).
 
 ### register
 
 ```text
-wigolo register [--email E] [--json]
+wigolo register [--email E] [--code C] [--headless] [--marketing-consent] [--json]
 ```
 
-Creates your account and activates this install. It asks for your email address, mails a
+Creates your account and unlocks it on this install. It asks for your email address, mails a
 sign-in code and waits for you to type it back; then — still before the account exists —
 shows what usage and reliability telemetry covers and asks whether you want occasional
-product-update emails. No password at any point. If the account service is unreachable
-when the disclosure is fetched, registration stops and nothing is created: the wording
-being agreed to is served, never bundled into the client, so there is no offline
-substitute to show you.
+product-update emails. That last question is **unticked by default**: consent is an
+affirmative act, so anything other than an explicit yes is a no. No password at any point.
+If the account service is unreachable when the disclosure is fetched, registration stops and
+nothing is created: the wording being agreed to is served, never bundled into the client, so
+there is no offline substitute to show you.
+
+**`--headless` is the agent-assisted path**, and it asks nothing — there is no prompt to
+hang on, which is what makes it safe inside an agent loop. It runs in two stages:
+
+```bash
+wigolo register --headless --email you@example.com          # mails the code; creates nothing
+wigolo register --headless --email you@example.com --code 123456   # the human relays the code
+```
+
+Stage one creates no account and carries no consent. The human reads the code out of their
+own inbox and hands it back, so the person who owns the address is the person who claims the
+account. `--marketing-consent` is the only way to say yes to product-update email on this
+path; omitting it — and the explicit `--no-marketing-consent` — both mean no. `wigolo login`
+takes the same two flags for signing an existing account in.
 
 ### login
 

docs/getting-started.md

@@ -25,16 +25,27 @@ Useful variants:
 - `npx wigolo init --wizard` — the rich guided setup TUI.
 - `npx wigolo init --json` — machine-readable summary on stdout.
 
-When setup finishes on a machine that has no wigolo account yet, `init` closes with the
-next step:
+When setup finishes on a machine that has no wigolo account yet, `init` closes by saying so
+— and by saying it changes nothing about whether the tools work:
 
 ```text
-  Next step: run `wigolo register` to activate this install (already have an account? `wigolo login`).
+  wigolo runs fully without an account — registering only adds to it.
+  Optional — `wigolo register` unlocks:
+    · sync — your cache, settings and watches across machines
+    · marketplace — publish and install skills and plugins
+    · higher pacing and watch limits
+    · managed cloud runs, when they land
+  Telemetry: no page content, URLs, or credentials leave your machine; usage stats do, off with one flag (WIGOLO_TELEMETRY=off).
 ```
 
-## 2. Activate this install
+## 2. An account, if and when you want one — optional
 
-The ten tools need an account. Create one — it takes an email address and a sign-in code,
+**Skip this section and everything still works.** All ten tools, on every surface, run on a
+machine that has never registered, and so do `doctor`, `verify` and `warmup`. Nothing is
+gated.
+
+A free account unlocks sync across machines, the marketplace, higher pacing and watch
+limits, and managed cloud runs when they land. It takes an email address and a sign-in code,
 no password:
 
 ```bash
@@ -43,19 +54,16 @@ npx wigolo register
 
 `register` asks for your email, mails a sign-in code, and waits for you to type it back.
 Before the account is actually created it shows what usage and reliability telemetry
-covers and asks whether you want occasional product-update emails — then activates this
-machine. Already have an account? `npx wigolo login` signs this machine in instead.
-
-Until then every tool refuses with the same line, whichever surface it was called from:
-
-```text
-wigolo needs an account — run `wigolo register` to create one (already have one? `wigolo login`).
-```
-
-Diagnostics stay available while unactivated — `doctor`, `verify` and `warmup` run on a
-machine that has never registered, so a broken install can still be diagnosed. See
-[Account & telemetry](../README.md#account--telemetry) for what is collected and how to
-turn telemetry off.
+covers and asks whether you want occasional product-update emails — that question is
+unticked by default. Already have an account? `npx wigolo login` signs this machine in
+instead. Inside an agent loop, `npx wigolo register --headless --email you@example.com`
+mails the code without ever waiting on a prompt; the human reads it from their own inbox and
+finishes with `--code`.
+
+An unregistered install says all of this exactly once — in a footer under a tool result that
+already worked — and then never again. See
+[Account & telemetry](../README.md#account--telemetry) for what telemetry collects and how
+to turn it off.
 
 ## 3. First search — through your agent
 

docs/privacy-security.md

@@ -4,10 +4,18 @@ wigolo's privacy model is structural, not a policy promise: the software runs on
 machine, stores on your disk, and the only thing it can report is a closed list of counters
 that page content, queries and URLs are not representable in.
 
-As of 0.3.0 there is one vendor backend — the account service that activates your install
-and receives usage and reliability telemetry. What it can receive is bounded by the code,
-not by a promise, and the telemetry half is a single switch away from silent. Both are
-below.
+As of 0.3.0 there is one vendor backend — the account service that registers you and
+receives usage and reliability telemetry. What it can receive is bounded by the code, not by
+a promise, and the telemetry half is a single switch away from silent. Both are below.
+
+The claim in one sentence, and it is the same sentence the CLI, the first-run output and
+your agent are shown: **no page content, URLs, or credentials leave your machine; usage
+stats do, off with one flag.** Earlier copy said nothing left your machine at all. That was
+never true of the counters and the wording is retired; what follows is the exact list.
+
+No tool is gated on an account — a machine that has never registered runs all ten — and an
+install with no account reports nothing at all, because counters are attributed to an
+account or not collected ([below](#usage-and-reliability-telemetry)).
 
 ## Everything stays local
 
@@ -103,7 +111,7 @@ wigolo config --set WIGOLO_TELEMETRY=off   # permanently
 ```
 
 `off`, `no`, `false` and `0` all mean off. Off means nothing is queued, nothing is written
-to `telemetry/`, and nothing leaves the machine — the switch is read before an event is
+to `telemetry/`, and no counter reaches the wire — the switch is read before an event is
 built, not before a batch is sent. Nothing is queued or sent on an install that has never
 registered either, because there is no account to attribute counters to.