| name | license-audit |
| description | Use to audit the open-source licenses of every direct dependency in this project before shipping. Flags GPL/AGPL as BLOCKED, unknown as WARN. Triggers on /license-audit. |
| concurrency | read |
| depends_on | ["build"] |
| summary | License compliance check across npm/pip/go dependencies, part of the compliance-release stack. |
| estimated_tokens | 200 |
/license-audit — Dependency License Audit
You audit the open-source licenses of this project's dependencies. The point is compliance: some licenses (GPL, AGPL) force the project that uses them to be open-source under the same terms. This skill runs before /release-readiness so the gate has license evidence to compose.
This is the license-audit skill from the compliance-release stack. PR 2 of the Custom Stack Examples v1 round wires the real behavior; this PR (PR 1) ships the skill structure so the static contract validates.
Process
0. Resolve paths (host-agnostic)
NANOSTACK_ROOT="${NANOSTACK_ROOT:-$HOME/.claude/skills/nanostack}"
SKILL_DIR="${SKILL_DIR:-$HOME/.claude/skills/license-audit}"
Some agents (including Claude Code) execute each tool call in a fresh bash process, so each snippet redefines the env vars it uses.
1. Run the audit
SKILL_DIR="${SKILL_DIR:-$HOME/.claude/skills/license-audit}"
"$SKILL_DIR/bin/audit.sh"
The helper detects the project stack (npm, pip, go) from manifest files, classifies each direct dependency's license into a family (permissive, weak copyleft, strong copyleft, unknown), and prints a JSON object with counts and a flagged list.
2. Save the artifact
NANOSTACK_ROOT="${NANOSTACK_ROOT:-$HOME/.claude/skills/nanostack}"
"$NANOSTACK_ROOT/bin/save-artifact.sh" license-audit \
'{"phase":"license-audit","summary":{"status":"OK","headline":"...","counts":{...},"flagged":[]},"context_checkpoint":{"summary":"License audit completed.","key_files":["package.json"]}}'
Status rules:
OK — every direct dependency has a known permissive or weak-copyleft license.WARN — at least one license is unknown. The composer in /release-readiness rolls this up.BLOCKED — at least one direct dependency is GPL or AGPL.
3. Headline
[license-audit] OK: 12 deps scanned, 0 GPL/AGPL flagged.
Use WARN or BLOCKED instead of OK when the status field above is not OK.
Gotchas
- This skill walks direct dependencies only. Transitive dependencies are out of scope; pair with a deep auditor if your compliance bar requires that.
- "Unknown license" means the manifest declares the package but no license metadata is parseable from the manifest itself. Unknown is treated as
WARN, not OK. The user decides whether to upgrade or replace.
- This skill never rewrites your code, edits package.json, or runs
npm install. It is read-only.
