licenz

Make sure your NPM modules have licenses.

Installation

Make sure you have Node.js and NPM installed. Then, run the following to use licenz system-wide:

npm install -g licenz

Alternatively, install it as a development dependency in your current module:

npm install licenz --save-dev

Use

CLI

licenz ./path/to/module/

Run licenz --help for additional help.

White-listing Licenses

Does your project’s dependencies have licenses that you know are acceptable? Tell licenz they’re okay by using the --licenses flag:

licenz --licenses "Apache 2, WTFPL, Public Domain" ./path/to/module

White-listing Modules

A are dependencies licenses undetectable by licenz? No problem! Use the --modules flag to make them pass:

licenz --modules "module-1@1.0.0, module2@^2.1.0" ./path/to/module

Programatically

Licenz exports a single function which you can require:

var licenz = require('licenz');
 
licenz(options, function(err, res) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
  }
  console.log(res);
});

It expects two optional arguments:

• options (object): Hash of configurations for licenz. The following keys are used:

  • path (string): Path to the directory to scan. Example:

    var options = {
      path: './path/to/module'
    };

  • whitelistLicenses (array): List of licenses to accept. Example:

    var options = {
      whitelistLicenses: ['My Cool License', 'My Other License']
    };

  • whitelistModules (object): List of modules to accept. Use module names as the keys and corresponding semver-compatible versions or ranges as the values:

    var options = {
      whitelistModules: {
        'my-module': '^2.3.0',
        'my-other-module': '0.5.2',
        'my-best-module': '~8.0.0'
      }
    };

• callback (function): Node-style callback function. The “response” is an array of unlicensed module objects. A possible way of dealing with it:

  licenz(options, function(err, res) {
    if (err) {
      return console.error(err);
    }
    if (res.length) {
      res.forEach(function(module) {
        console.log('Unlicensed: ' + module.name + '@' + module.version);
      });
    } else {
      console.log('All licensed!');
    }
  });

  In this example, res would be populated with these objects:

  {
    licenses: 'UNKNOWN',
    licenseFile: undefined,
    name: 'unlicensed-module'
    repository: 'https://github.com/unlicensed-user/unlicensed-module',
    version: '1.0.0'
  }

licenz also supports a Promise interface:

licenz(options).then(function(results) {
  console.log(results);
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.error(error);
});

Integrating With Pre-Commit

Integrating licenz with git’s pre-commit hook is easy using pre-commit. Make sure both pre-commit and licenz are installed (npm i pre-commit licenz --save-dev). Then, add a licenz to a script in your package.json:

//...
"scripts": {
  "validate": "licenz",
  //...
}
//...

Then, create a precommit key and add the script:

//...
"precommit": [
  "validate",
  //...
]
//...