Add License

Overview

Add an open source license file to a repository with automatically populated copyright information. Also updates the license field in package.json if present.

Usage

When the user requests to add a license to their repository, follow this workflow:

1. Determine target location

Identify the project root directory. If the user is in a subdirectory of a git repository, check if they want the LICENSE file in the current directory or the repository root.

2. Extract copyright information

Extract copyright owner information from git configuration:

git config user.name

If git config is not available or the user prefers, ask for the copyright owner name explicitly.

For the copyright year, use the current year.

3. Create LICENSE file

Copy the Apache 2.0 license template from assets/LICENSE-APACHE-2.0 to LICENSE in the target directory.

Then append the copyright notice to the end of the LICENSE file:

Copyright [YEAR] [COPYRIGHT OWNER NAME]

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

Replace [YEAR] with the current year and [COPYRIGHT OWNER NAME] with the name extracted from git config.

4. Update package.json (if present)

Check if a package.json file exists in the target directory:

ls package.json

If package.json exists:

Read the package.json file
Update or add the "license" field to "Apache-2.0"
Write the updated package.json back to disk, preserving formatting

If the license field already exists, replace it. If it doesn't exist, add it to the JSON object.

5. Confirm completion

Inform the user that the LICENSE file has been created and confirm the copyright information used. If package.json was updated, mention that as well.

Example Workflows

User request: "Add an Apache license to this project"

Actions:

Check current directory is a git repository
Run git config user.name to get copyright owner
Get current year
Read assets/LICENSE-APACHE-2.0
Write to LICENSE file with full license text
Append copyright notice with populated year and owner name
Check if package.json exists
If package.json exists, read it, update the "license" field to "Apache-2.0", and write it back
Confirm: "Created LICENSE file with Apache 2.0 license. Copyright 2025 John Doe. Updated package.json with Apache-2.0 license."

Resources

assets/LICENSE-APACHE-2.0

Full text of the Apache License 2.0, used as the template for generating LICENSE files.

dev.add-license