HTML License Generator for NPM/Yarn based projects

Generate a HTML page with list of dependency licenses based on npm/yarn installed packages. Example output

This project is based on npm-license-generator

Usage

Install:

1npm install --global html-license-gen

Options:

1$ html-license-gen --help
2
3Usage:
4  html-license-gen [folder]
5
6Positionals:
7  folder  Folder of NPM project. Defaults to current working directory  [string]
8
9Paths and files:
10  --folder           Folder of NPM project. Defaults to current working
11                     directory                                          [string]
12  --monorepo-root    Root folder of monorepo - if project is in monorepo[string]
13  --out-path         HTML output path      [string] [default: "./licenses.html"]
14  --tmp-folder-name  Name of temporary folder
15                                          [string] [default: ".license-gen-tmp"]
16
17Output HTML appearance:
18  --group           Group licenses                     [boolean] [default: true]
19  --external-links  Link package names to their repos  [boolean] [default: true]
20  --add-index       Creates index with link to licenses below
21                                                      [boolean] [default: false]
22  --title           Use given value as document title  [string] [default: false]
23  --template        Path to custom mustache template                    [string]
24
25Package related:
26  --registry      URL of package registry to use
27                                [string] [default: "https://registry.npmjs.org"]
28  --ignored       Semicolon-separated list of packages to ignore
29                                          [string] [default: "html-license-gen"]
30  --only-prod     Ignore optional and dev dependencies[boolean] [default: false]
31  --package-lock  Run on all packages listed in package-lock.json
32                                                      [boolean] [default: false]
33
34Cache and optimization:
35  --keep-cache      Do not clean cache after run      [boolean] [default: false]
36  --checksum-path   Checksum file path, to detect if update of HTML is needed
37                                                       [string] [default: false]
38  --checksum-embed  Embed checksum into HTML to detect need for update
39                                                      [boolean] [default: false]
40  --avoid-registry  Try local package.json instead asking online registry
41                                                       [boolean] [default: true]
42  --no-spdx         Do not download license file based on SPDX string
43                                                      [boolean] [default: false]
44  --only-spdx       Do not use tarballs, only use SPDX string
45                                                      [boolean] [default: false]
46  --only-local-tar  Do not download tarballs, use only local tarballs
47                                                       [boolean] [default: true]
48
49Options:
50  --version        Show version number                                 [boolean]
51  --help           Show help                                           [boolean]
52  --log-level      Configures how verbose logs are, one of the following values:
53                   error, warn, info, verbose, debug  [string] [default: "warn"]
54  --error-missing  Exit 1 if no license is present for a package
55                                                      [boolean] [default: false]

Options

All boolean options can be prepended with no- that negates flag, for example; --group groups packages but --no-group disables grouping.

• --error-missing, --no-error-missing If enabled, stops and exits generator (without generating/updating HTML file) when any expected license is missing Disabled by default.
  

• --log-level Decides how detailed log are. Allowed levels: error, warn, info, verbose, debug warn by default
  

Path related options:

• --folder Specify root directory of project to parse, by default current directory
  

• --monorepo-root Specify root directory of monorepo in case it is workspace based project, used to search for package, lock and license files.
  

• --out-path Specify output path where generated file will be written. File is always overwritten unless --checksum-path or --checksum-embed is used and no change is needed.
  

• --tmp-folder-name Specify folder where to download tarballs. Folder need to be writable. Folder and its contents gets deleted after generating file unless --keep-cache options is given.

Output and HTML appearance options:

• --group, --no-group Groups packages which use exact same license texts, reducing duplicates and file size. Enabled by default.
  

• --external-links, --no-external-links Links package names (in license header) to their homepages (if and as configured in package.json homepage) Enabled by default.
  

• --add-index, --no-add-index Creates index at begin of file - list of anchors allowing quickly jumping to respective package library. Disabled by default.
  

• --title Overrides default document title / main header (which is root app package name) with given string.
  

• --template Overrides default template path, allowing passing custom template.
  

Package filtering and configuration:

• --registry Allows specifying URL of custom NPM repository, otherwise default global NPM repo is used
  

• --ignored Semicolon-separated list of packages to ignore and NOT include in generated HTML. For example: typescript;eslint;tar
  

• --only-prod, --no-only-prod If enabled, ignores optional and development packages, using only "production" facing packages Disabled by default.
  

• --package-lock, --no-package-lock Instead of relying solely on package.json - also scan lock files to include all dependencies and sub-dependencies. Generates bigger file but include also dependencies of dependencies, not only direct deps. Recommended to use with --only-prod (which would otherwise be huge) and without --no-avoid-registry which generates a lot of network requests to registry Disabled by default.

Cache and optimization:

• --keep-cache, --no-keep-cache If enabled, does not delete tmp folder, allowing cache to persist between runs Disabled by default.
  

• --checksum-path Allows skipping generation of HTM when packages have not changed. If path is specified, special file indicated by path is used to store checksum. If file exist and contains checksum matching checksum resolved for current package/version list - HTML generation will be skipped After generating HTML file, checksum is written/updated int this file. NOTICE - it does NOT checks for changes in license files, only if package list (and their version) are same.
  

• --checksum-embed, --no-checksum-embed Allows skipping generation of HTM when packages have not changed. If specified, embed checksum inside generated HTML (as an comment) If existing HTML checksum matching checksum resolved for current package/version list - HTML generation will be skipped NOTICE - it does NOT checks for changes in license files, only if package list (and their version) are same. Disabled by default.
  

• --avoid-registry, --no-avoid-registry By default, instead asking online NPM repo, uses package.json files found in node_modules. It is way faster but may be inaccurate. Enabled by default.
  

• --no-spdx If enabled, does not use SPDX license repository as fallback for missing licenses Disabled by default.
  

• --no-spdx If enabled, use only SPDX license repository and do not use license files found in packages/tarballs Disabled by default.
  

• --only-local-tar, --no-only-local-tar By default, use only local filesystem and tarballs for license discovery. --no-only-local-tar will enable downloading tarballs from resolved online URLs - but this may generate lot of internet traffic, especially when used together with --package-lock or without --only-prod Enabled by default.

Use your own template

Supply your own template using the --template option. Templates are written in Mustache. Your template does not have to be HTML, change the output file name using --out-path.

Use template.html file as and starting point

How licenses are found

1. Get package version and tarball location from package.lock / yarn.lock
2. Look for licenses in node_modules if avalible
3. Otherwise download tarball, extract, look for licenses, and use that
4. Otherwise, evaluate SPDX string and use a file from https://github.com/spdx/license-list-data/tree/master/text