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GitHub Licenses API

The GitHub Licenses API lets you programmatically discover and retrieve open source license information across GitHub. It provides endpoints to list the common licenses GitHub supports, get detailed metadata and the canonical text for a specific license (by its SPDX identifier), and fetch the detected license for a given repository.

GitHub Licenses API is one of 384 APIs that GitHub publishes on the APIs.io network, described by a machine-readable OpenAPI specification.

Tagged areas include Licenses. The published artifact set on APIs.io includes an OpenAPI specification and API documentation.

This API exposes 5 operations across 5 paths, and defines 5 schemas. It is described by OpenAPI 3.0.3, at version 1.1.4.

Requests are made against a single base URL, {protocol}://{hostname}/api/v3.

5 operations 5 paths 5 schemas 3 GET2 POST

Metadata

The identity and technical contract details declared by the specification.

Specification
OpenAPI 3.0.3
API Version
1.1.4
Base URL
https://api.github.com/
Authentication
HTTP Bearer
Contact
License
Terms of Service
Resource Areas
1

Authentication & Security 1

GitHub Licenses API declares 1 security scheme for authenticating requests. It accepts HTTP bearer tokens (bearerHttpAuthentication).

  • bearerHttpAuthentication — Bearer Token

Paths & Operations 5

Across 5 paths, the API surfaces 5 operations — 3 GET, 2 POST. Each is listed below with its method, path, parameters, and response codes.

Licenses 5
GET
/licenses/{license}
GitHub Get License
getlicense 1 param → 200304403404
GET
/licenses
GitHub Get All Commonly Used Licenses
licenses/get-all-commonly-used 3 params → 200304
GET
/repos/{owner}/{repo}/license
GitHub Get the License for a Repository
licenses/get-for-repo 2 params → 200404
POST
/setup/api/start
GitHub Create Github License
createGithubLicense body → 202401
POST
/setup/api/upgrade
GitHub Upgrade License
upgradeLicense body → 202401

Schemas 5

The contract defines 5 schemas that model the data the API accepts and returns. The most detailed are license-content (13 properties), license (13 properties), license-simple (6 properties), nullable-license-simple (6 properties). Each schema is shown below with its type and property counts.

basic-error
object
Basic Error
4 properties
nullable-license-simple
object
License Simple
6 properties 5 required
license-simple
object
License Simple
6 properties 5 required
license
object
License
13 properties 13 required
license-content
object
License Content
13 properties 13 required

Specification

The full machine-readable OpenAPI contract behind this narrative.

Source

github-licenses-api-openapi.yml Raw ↑

Other APIs GitHub publishes across the network.

GitHub Events API
GitHub Feeds API
GitHub Gists API
GitHub Issues API
GitHub Markdown API
GitHub Meta API
GitHub Notifications API
GitHub Octocat API
GitHub Projects API
GitHub Repos API
GitHub Search API
GitHub User API
Where this information came from

This is an independent, third-party profile of GitHub Licenses API, published by API Evangelist. We do not operate, host, resell, or support these APIs, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the company unless stated above. Everything here is built from publicly available information — the company's own site, developer portal, documentation, public repositories, and the specifications it publishes for public use. Nothing is obtained by breaching a system, defeating an access control, or using credentials.

The Kin Score and Agent Readiness rating are independently calculated assessments of a company's public API artifacts, scored against a published rubric. They are not certifications, endorsements, security assessments, or audits.

Corrections, re-scores, and removal are free — no partnership or purchase required, and you do not need to justify the request. A removed company is recorded as unrated, never scored zero for having asked. Acknowledgement within one business day; removal within two.

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