md-license-header

Add or update license headers in code files using MIT, Apache 2.0, or custom templates — from the command line.

✅ Features

• Adds license headers to .js, .ts, .py, .java, and other supported files
• Skips files that already contain a license
• Supports MIT and Apache-2.0 (more coming soon)
• Programmatic API and CLI
• Dry-run mode to preview changes
• Git-aware: respects .gitignore

🚀 Installation

npm install -g md-license-header

Or use without installing:

npx md-license-header

🧪 Usage (CLI)

npx md-license-header --license mit --author "Your Name" --path ./src

Options

| Flag | Alias | Description | Default | | ----------- | ----- | --------------------------------------- | ------------- | | --license | -l | License type (mit, apache) | mit | | --author | -a | Author name for the license | "Your Name" | | --ext | -e | Comma-separated list of file extensions | js,ts,py | | --path | -p | Target directory to scan | . (cwd) | | --dry | -d | Preview changes without writing files | false |

Example

npx md-license-header --license apache --author "Huzaifa Azim" --ext js,ts,py --path ./src

💻 Programmatic API

const addLicenseHeaders = require("md-license-header");

addLicenseHeaders({
  dir: "./src",
  license: "mit",
  author: "Huzaifa",
  extensions: ["js", "ts", "py"],
  dryRun: false
});

🧹 Skipping Files

• Files already containing a license block (e.g. "MIT License", "Apache License") are not modified
• .gitignore is respected automatically

📜 License Templates

Currently supported:

• mit
• apache

You can easily extend the lib/licenses.js file to add your own.

📦 Roadmap

• [ ] Support SPDX-only headers (e.g. // SPDX-License-Identifier)
• [ ] Add more license types: BSD, MPL, GPL
• [ ] File-specific overrides
• [ ] --remove mode to strip licenses

👥 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! Please open an issue to discuss features or improvements before submitting.

📄 License

MIT © 2025 Huzaifa Azim