Show HN: Lichen – Manage and create code licenses on the CLI and with TOML
4 philocalyst 2 5/1/2025, 4:55:38 PM github.com ↗
Hey! I'm Miles, I built this tool to be a fast and reliable solution for generating licenses on the CLI. Licensing has always been a point of stress for me, with how much is at stake. If I copy one from the wrong website, the version I download is the wrong one, or any number of mishaps, my whole code is at risk. We see this fiasco play out all the time. We shake our saddened heads and go on.
No longer! Lichen is designed to generate licenses sensibly with three words on the CLI. `lic gen MIT`. Or in a `.lichen.toml` in your project root. Add authors/maintainers with --authors, date it with --date, license specific parts with exclude patterns and double licenses. Project big or small, it's got everything (I think). (Tell me what it's missing please). It uses SPDX licenses for correctness.
Written in Rust, you'll know you're safe, and if you want to be extra cautious, feel free to create license headers on all your files (Fast too! Can do this for the entire cargo project in 22s uncached).
I'm happy to answer any questions/concerns/whatever about my tool, it's my biggest project to date (And therefore my most bug-ridden...)
Comments (2)
lauraleepw · 4h ago
Love this project. Seems like a genuinely slick and useful addition to the convenience CLI tool space. Rust tooling continues its slow takeover of the terminal space...
philocalyst · 3h ago
Thanks !