golic

A declarative tool injecting licenses into source code

golic inject -c="2022 MyCompany ltd." --dry

Quickstart

Install and run GOLIC

# GO 1.16 
go install github.com/AbsaOSS/golic@latest
golic version

Golic has two configurations .licignore and .golic.yaml. The first determines which files will be selected for license injection. The second contains a configuration of license text and formatting rules.

.licignore

.licignore determines which files will be selected for license injection. The syntax of the file is the same as for .gitignore. For simplicity, we have created inverse rules - we denied everything and allowed where to place license.

Create .licignore in project root

# Ignore everything
*

# But not these files...
!Dockerfile*
!Makefile
!*.go

# ...even if they are in subdirectories
!*/

.golic.yaml

golic.yaml contains a configuration with license text and formatting rules. Golic uses embeded master configuration by default. The master configuration is compiled and goes with binary, so it can change from version to version. If you need to change configuration, you can override it. For example, you want to replace the license text, or extend with new file types. All you have to do is to create a .golic.yaml file in the project root. Golic will read it and overrides master configuration rules.

Example below overrides master configuration by adding apacheX licenses and sets new rule for *.go.txt and .mzm. For more details see master configuration example.

# .golic.yaml 
golic:
  licenses:
    apacheX: |
      Copyright MyCompany
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque pretium lectus id turpis. 
      Suspendisse sagittis ultrices augue. Integer pellentesque quam vel velit. In sem justo, commodo ut 
      suscipit at, pharetra vitae, orci
      
      for more details see https://github.com/mycompany/myproject/LICENSE
  rules:
    "*.go.txt":
      prefix: "/*"
      suffix: "*/"
    .mzm:
      prefix: ""  # no indent, no prefix or suffix, just place license text into top of the file

Running from commandline

If you already created .licignore and .golic.yaml, run command :

golic inject -t apacheX

Consider to use --dry flag to preview which files will be affected, before golic modify files. For more command line options (like placeholders, default values etc.), see Usage section.

CI support

Usually you want to find out that something went wrong during CI / CD. For example, a file is missing a license. In terms of golic, we want the build pipe to end with an error if we find at least one file with a missing license. The -x argument handles that.

  go install github.com/AbsaOSS/golic@latest
  golic inject --dry -x -t apache2

Updating license

The moment you need to change or delete the license text, the remove command comes into play. It deletes license depending on .golic.yaml and .licignore. If you want to update the license (e.g. the text in the license needs to be changed), you must first remove the license and then re-inject the updated version. I highly recommend using the --dryargument before removing the license.

# updating apacheX license

# remove apacheX license from the source
golic remove -t apacheX
# now update apacheX in .golic.yaml and inject back
golic inject -t apacheX

Usage

Available Commands:
  help        Help about any command
  inject      Injects licenses
  remove      Remove licenses
  version     Print the version number of Golic


Flags:
  -h, --help      help for this command
  -v, --verbose   verbose output

Usage inject:
   inject [flags]

Flags:
  -p, --config-path string   path to the local configuration overriding config-url (default ".golic.yaml")
  -c, --copyright string     company initials entered into license (default "2022 MyCompany")
  -d, --dry                  dry run
  -h, --help                 help for inject
  -l, --licignore string     .licignore path (default ".licignore")
  -x, --modified-exit        If enabled, exits with status 1 when any file is modified. The settings is used by CI
  -t, --template string      license key (default "apache2")

Usage remove:
   remove [flags]

Flags:
  -p, --config-path string   path to the local configuration overriding config-url (default ".golic.yaml")
  -c, --copyright string     company initials entered into license (default "2022 MyCompany")
  -d, --dry                  dry run
  -h, --help                 help for inject
  -l, --licignore string     .licignore path (default ".licignore")
  -t, --template string      license key (default "apache2")

Global Flags:
  -v, --verbose   verbose output