license-gen

Generate a LICENSE file from your terminal — fully offline. Fills in the copyright holder and year automatically (from your git config), and bundles the full text of the most common open-source licenses. Zero dependencies.

No network call, no API, no dependency tree — just the license text written to disk.

Install

npm install -g license-gen

Or without installing:

npx license-gen mit

Usage

license-gen mit                       # MIT, author auto-detected from git
license-gen apache-2.0 -n "Jane Doe"  # Override the name
license-gen isc -y 2024               # Override the year
license-gen mit --stdout              # Preview without writing
license-gen mit --force               # Overwrite an existing LICENSE
license-gen --list                    # List available licenses

Example

$ license-gen mit

✓ Created LICENSE  (MIT)
  Copyright (c) 2026 Jane Doe

The author name is resolved in this order:

1. --name flag
2. git config user.name
3. package.json → author
4. your OS username

Available Licenses

| Key | License | SPDX | |---|---|---| | mit | MIT License | MIT | | apache-2.0 | Apache License 2.0 | Apache-2.0 | | bsd-2-clause | BSD 2-Clause | BSD-2-Clause | | bsd-3-clause | BSD 3-Clause | BSD-3-Clause | | isc | ISC License | ISC | | 0bsd | BSD Zero Clause | 0BSD | | unlicense | The Unlicense | Unlicense |

Aliases: apache → apache-2.0, bsd → bsd-3-clause, bsd2, bsd3.

Not sure which to pick? See choosealicense.com. For most small open-source projects, MIT is the conventional choice.

Options

| Flag | Description | |---|---| | -n, --name <name> | Copyright holder | | -y, --year <year> | Copyright year (default: current) | | -o, --out <file> | Output file (default: LICENSE) | | --stdout | Print to stdout instead of writing | | --force | Overwrite an existing file | | -l, --list | List available licenses |

License

MIT

Keywords

license generator · generate license · mit license · apache license · choose a license · license file · open source license · spdx · offline · zero dependencies

Built to solve, shared to help — Rushabh Shah 🛠️✨

One of 40+ zero-dependency developer CLI tools — no node_modules, ever.