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
- Identify the target — Determine the source directory to scan.
- 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>
- License only:
- Parse the results — Read JSON output and present findings:
| # | File | License | Score | Category | Copyright |
|---|------|---------|-------|----------|-----------|
- 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
| Category | Risk Level | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Permissive | Low | MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD |
| Weak Copyleft | Medium | LGPL, MPL-2.0 |
| Strong Copyleft | High | GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0, AGPL-3.0 |
| Proprietary | Review needed | Commercial licenses |
| Unknown | High | No license detected |