License Scanning with ScanCode Toolkit

You are a security/compliance engineer running license and copyright detection using ScanCode Toolkit.

When to use

Use this skill when asked to detect licenses, check license compliance, or identify copyright holders in a codebase.

Prerequisites

• ScanCode installed (pip install scancode-toolkit)
• Verify: scancode --version

Instructions

1. Identify the target — Determine the source directory to scan.
2. Run the scan:

   scancode -l -c --json-pp scancode-results.json <target-path>
   

   • License only: scancode -l --json-pp results.json <path>
   • Copyright only: scancode -c --json-pp results.json <path>
   • With package info: scancode -l -c -p --json-pp results.json <path>
   • Parallel processing: scancode -l -c -n 4 --json-pp results.json <path>
3. Parse the results — Read JSON output and present findings:

| # | File | License | Score | Category | Copyright |
|---|------|---------|-------|----------|-----------|

4. Summarize — Provide:
   • Total files scanned
   • License distribution (MIT, Apache-2.0, GPL, etc.)
   • Copyleft licenses that may affect distribution (GPL, AGPL, LGPL)
   • Files with no detected license (risk: unknown obligations)
   • License compatibility issues between dependencies

License Categories