spdx-license-list

spdx-license-list

List of SPDX licenses

The lists of licenses are just JSON files and can be used anywhere.

• spdx.json contains just license metadata
• spdx-full.json includes the license text too
• spdx-simple.json only contains the license IDs

Using SPDX License List version 3.27.0 (2025-07-01)

Install

npm install spdx-license-list

Usage

const spdxLicenseList = require('spdx-license-list');

console.log(spdxLicenseList.MIT);
/*
{
	name: 'MIT License',
	url: 'http://www.opensource.org/licenses/MIT',
	osiApproved: true
}
*/

const mitLicense = require('spdx-license-list/licenses/MIT');

console.log(mitLicense.licenseText);
//=> 'MIT License\r\n\r\nCopyright (c) <year> <copyright holders> …'

You can also get a version with the licence text included:

const spdxLicenseList = require('spdx-license-list/full');

console.log(spdxLicenseList.MIT);
/*
{
	name: 'MIT License',
	url: 'http://www.opensource.org/licenses/MIT',
	osiApproved: true,
	licenseText: '…'
}
*/

Or just the license IDs as a Set:

const spdxLicenseList = require('spdx-license-list/simple');

console.log(spdxLicenseList);
//=> Set {'Glide', 'Abstyles', …}

API

spdxLicenseList

Type: object

The licenses are indexed by their identifier and contains a name property with the full name of the license, url with the URL to the license, and osiApproved boolean for whether the license is OSI Approved.

Similar packages

Other packages similar to spdx-license-list

spdx-correct

The spdx-correct package helps correct common misspellings and variations of SPDX license identifiers. It is useful for ensuring that license identifiers conform to the SPDX standard, but it does not provide detailed license metadata like spdx-license-list.

spdx-expression-parse

The spdx-expression-parse package parses SPDX license expressions into a structured format. It is useful for analyzing complex license expressions, but it does not provide a list of licenses or their metadata like spdx-license-list.

spdx-satisfies

The spdx-satisfies package checks if a given license expression satisfies another license expression. It is useful for license compatibility checks, but it does not provide a list of licenses or their metadata like spdx-license-list.