How to make an open-source license report and NOTICE file for your app

Free, for npm: license-checker-rseidelsohn

license-checker-rseidelsohn is a free, maintained fork of the older license-checker. It reads the packages installed in node_modules, so run npm install first.

1. In Terminal, go to the project folder (where package.json is).
2. Print a summary of the licenses in use with the first line below.
3. Write every package and its license to a CSV file with the second line, and copy every package's license file into a folder with the third.
4. Add --production to any of them to leave out dev dependencies, which usually don't ship with the app.

npx license-checker-rseidelsohn --summary
npx license-checker-rseidelsohn --csv --out licenses.csv
npx license-checker-rseidelsohn --files license-files

Free, for Python: pip-licenses

pip-licenses lists the packages installed in a Python environment. Install it in the project's virtual environment so it sees the same packages.

1. Activate the project's virtual environment, then run pip install pip-licenses.
2. List each package with its license with pip-licenses --from=mixed --format=markdown.
3. Collect the license texts with pip-licenses --format=plain-vertical --with-license-file --no-license-path and paste them into your NOTICE file.

Free, for Swift packages: LicensePlist

LicensePlist makes an acknowledgements list from Swift Package Manager, CocoaPods and Carthage files, mostly for an iOS app's Settings bundle. Install it with Homebrew.

1. Install it with brew install licenseplist.
2. In the folder with your .xcodeproj, run license-plist --markdown-path Acknowledgements.md to get a Markdown list with every license text.
3. Check the list against Package.resolved: packages it couldn't find a license for need a look by hand.

LicensePlist looks up license texts through the GitHub API, so it needs the network and can hit GitHub's rate limit; its --package-sources-path option reads checked-out sources instead.