license-fixer

license-fixer

A Go CLI that checks Apache LICENSE files in GitHub repositories and optionally fixes the unfilled copyright placeholder:

   Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]

Installation

go install github.com/ldemailly/license-fixer@latest

Usage

license-fixer [flags] <owner/repo|owner|org>

Point it at a single repository, a GitHub user, or an organisation. When given a user or org it checks all public repositories.

Check only (read-only)

# single repo
license-fixer fortio/template

# all public repos for an org
license-fixer fortio

# all public repos for a user
license-fixer ldemailly

Fix (creates a branch + PR)

Provide the replacement copyright text with -c (repeatable for multiple lines):

# single copyright line
license-fixer -fix -c "2025 Fortio Authors" fortio/template

# multiple copyright lines (like fortio/fortio)
license-fixer -fix \
    -c "2016 Fortio Authors" \
    -c "2015 Michal Witkowski (dflag/)" \
    fortio/fortio

# fix every unfilled repo under an org
license-fixer -fix -c "2025 Fortio Authors" fortio

Flags

Authentication & permissions

The tool uses a GitHub personal access token resolved in this order:

1. -token flag
2. GH_TOKEN environment variable
3. GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable
4. Output of gh auth token (if the GitHub CLI is installed)

For read-only checking a token is optional, but unauthenticated requests are limited to 60 requests/hour.

For -fix the token needs:

• repo scope – to read/write files and open PRs on repositories you own or have explicit write access to.
• public_repo (a subset of repo) – sufficient for public repos you want to fix directly.

How to obtain a token

Option A – GitHub CLI (recommended)

# authenticate once
gh auth login

# the token is then available automatically to license-fixer, or explicitly:
license-fixer -token "$(gh auth token)" fortio/template

Option B – Personal Access Token

1. Go to https://github.com/settings/tokens/new
2. Select scopes: public_repo (or repo for private repos)
3. Copy the generated token and export it:

export GH_TOKEN=ghp_...
license-fixer -fix -c "2025 Fortio Authors" fortio/template

Repositories you don't own

If the token lacks write access to a repository (e.g. you are fixing someone else's repo), the tool will automatically:

1. Fork the repository to your account
2. Create the fix branch on the fork
3. Commit the corrected LICENSE
4. Open a cross-repository pull request from yourlogin:fix-license-copyright to the upstream default branch

WARNING

This was 99% AI generated to solve https://github.com/fortio/template/issues/12

Quality doesn't reflect my golang skills