How do you make software end when a government contract does?

A government agency buys your product on a one year contract with two optional extensions. Their rules say it must run inside their own network, so your team installs it there. Some of their systems have no route to the outside at all.

In year three, the agency re-tenders the contract. A larger integrator wins and proposes to keep your product running while they build their own. Or the budget is cut and the contract is not renewed, but the software is already installed, doing useful work, and nobody is asked to turn it off.

You have no way to see it running, no way to stop it, and a copy of your code on servers you will never visit.

Your whole product, including the part that took years to build, sits on servers you do not control. The agency’s IT staff, the integrator and their subcontractors can all open those servers.

A signed agreement says use ends, but nothing in the software knows that. At renewal you are negotiating against a product that already runs for free.

A renewal with no leverage. Your product running for a new integrator who is building a replacement from what they can see. Your business logic known to people you never contracted.

A contract with a deletion clause gives you a legal claim, but you cannot check, and enforcing against a public body is slow. A licence key check stops casual use but runs on their machine, so an administrator can remove it.

Selling only as a hosted service keeps the code with you, but many agencies are not allowed to use one. Source code escrow is a fallback if you fail, and does nothing when you want access to end.

First, lock your business logic. Most of a codebase is boilerplate: screens, logins, forms, reports, connections to other systems. It looks much the same in every product. Your business logic, the rules that make your product yours, sits separately in its own files. NakodaX scans your repository and suggests those files. You review the list and decide what to protect.

Each agency gets its own licence, with an end date that matches the contract. The agency installs a small NakodaX package and starts your application the normal way. NakodaX can be installed on the agency’s own servers and works offline, so the software does not need the internet to check its licence.

When the contract ends, you revoke or pause that licence. At its next check in, the software can no longer open the locked files, so it stops. Other customers are not affected. Renewing is a decision you make: you extend the end date, and the agency receives a new key string.

Cutoff is not instant. It takes effect at the next check in, which can take a few hours. While the software runs under a valid licence, the business logic is in the server’s memory, so NakodaX protects the files, not a running server from its own administrator.

Today it works with Python, JavaScript, TypeScript and SQL.