Multiplatform command line tool that checks whether the license headers are included in the source files of a project.

• It can insert the license to a file in case it does not exist (optional).
• It can replace the license of a file in case it is different (optional).
• It is possible to choose the file extensions that will be processed.
• Specific folders, files and paths can be ignored.

DISCLAIMER

The tool expects the software license to be in a block comment at the beginning of the file following the format /* */.

Thus, while it does support the source files of languages like Go, Rust, JavaScript, TypeScript, C, C++, Java, Swift, Kotlin and C#, it does not support the file extensions that do not use this style.

$ license-header-checker [-a] [-r] [-v] [-i path1,...] license-header-path src-path extensions...

  -a        Add the target license in case the file does not have any.
  -r        Replace the existing license by the target one in case they are different.
  -v        Be verbose during execution.
  -i        A comma separated list of the folders, files and/or paths that should be ignored. 
            It does not support wildcards.
  -version  Display version number.

$ license-header-checker -v -a -r -i node_modules,client/assets ../license_header.txt . js ts

The binary packages for Linux, Windows and macOS are uploaded for each release and can be downloaded from here.

The tool has been built with go 1.13.

To build:

$ make build

To install in go/bin:

$ make install

To cross-compile (generate the binaries for Linux, Windows and macOS all at once):

$ make cross-build

To run unit tests:

$ make test

To see unit test coverage:

$ make test-cover

To run end-to-end tests:

$ make test-e2e