spdx-license-list

List of SPDX licenses

The lists of licenses are just JSON files and can be used anywhere.

• spdx.json contains just license metadata
• spdx-full.json includes the license text too
• spdx-simple.json only contains the license IDs

Using SPDX License List version 3.27.0 (2025-07-01)

Install

npm install spdx-license-list

Usage

const spdxLicenseList = require('spdx-license-list');

console.log(spdxLicenseList.MIT);
/*
{
	name: 'MIT License',
	url: 'http://www.opensource.org/licenses/MIT',
	osiApproved: true
}
*/

const mitLicense = require('spdx-license-list/licenses/MIT');

console.log(mitLicense.licenseText);
//=> 'MIT License\r\n\r\nCopyright (c) <year> <copyright holders> …'

You can also get a version with the licence text included:

const spdxLicenseList = require('spdx-license-list/full');

console.log(spdxLicenseList.MIT);
/*
{
	name: 'MIT License',
	url: 'http://www.opensource.org/licenses/MIT',
	osiApproved: true,
	licenseText: '…'
}
*/

Or just the license IDs as a Set:

const spdxLicenseList = require('spdx-license-list/simple');

console.log(spdxLicenseList);
//=> Set {'Glide', 'Abstyles', …}

API

spdxLicenseList

Type: object

The licenses are indexed by their identifier and contains a name property with the full name of the license, url with the URL to the license, and osiApproved boolean for whether the license is OSI Approved.