Adding a license to a repository

If you include a detectable license in your repository, people who visit your repository will see it at the top of the repository page. To read the entire license file, click the license name.

Open source licenses enable others to freely use, change, and distribute the project in your repository. For more information on repository licenses, see "Licensing a repository."

Including an open source license in your repository

1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Above the list of files, using the Add file drop-down, click Create new file.

   

3. In the file name field, type LICENSE or LICENSE.md (with all caps).

4. To the right of the file name field, click Choose a license template.

   

5. On the left side of the page, under "Add a license to your project," review the available licenses, then select a license from the list.

   

6. Click Review and submit.

   

7. At the bottom of the page, type a short, meaningful commit message that describes the change you made to the file. You can attribute the commit to more than one author in the commit message. For more information, see "Creating a commit with multiple co-authors."

   

8. Below the commit message fields, decide whether to add your commit to the current branch or to a new branch. If your current branch is the default branch, you should choose to create a new branch for your commit and then create a pull request. For more information, see "Creating a new pull request."

   

9. Below the commit message fields, click the email address drop-down menu and choose a Git author email address. Only verified email addresses appear in this drop-down menu. If you enabled email address privacy, then <username>@users.noreply.github.com is the default commit author email address. For more information, see "Setting your commit email address."

   

10. Click Commit new file.

    

Further reading

• "Setting guidelines for repository contributors"