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CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Project Overview

lc (licensechecker) is a CLI tool that recursively scans directories to identify software licenses in files. It uses SPDX license identification with multiple detection strategies: SPDX header parsing, filename matching, and content analysis (keyword matching, vector space, Levenshtein distance). Written in Go, currently at v2.0.0 alpha.

Build & Development Commands

go build                        # Build binary
go test -cover -race ./...      # Run all tests with coverage and race detection
go test -v -run TestName ./processor/  # Run a single test
gofmt -s -w ./..                # Format code
golangci-lint run --enable gofmt ./...  # Lint
./check.sh                      # Full verification (fmt, test, lint, race, cross-compile)

Regenerating the License Database

./generate_database.sh          # Build DB, copy JSON, run go generate, test

This builds assets/database/, produces database_keywords.json, then go generate (via scripts/include.go) embeds it as base64 in processor/constants.go.

Architecture

Entry point: main.go — Cobra CLI that creates processor.NewProcess(".") and calls StartProcess().

processor/ package (active v2 code):

  • processor.go — Orchestrator: walks files via gocodewalker, reads content (max 100KB), routes through detection pipeline
  • detector_spdx.go — Parses SPDX-License-Identifier: headers from source files (100% confidence)
  • detector_license.go — Detects licenses in dedicated license files (LICENSE, COPYING, etc.) using filename regex matching
  • guesser.go — LicenceGuesser interface and framework; two instances: common licenses (fast path) and full database
  • guesser_keyword.go — Keyword-based license detection using Aho-Corasick
  • guesser_vectorspace.go — TF-IDF vector space similarity matching
  • guesser_blended.go — Combines keyword + vector space scores
  • constants.go — Auto-generated; contains base64-encoded license database (do not edit manually)
  • structs.go — Core data types (FileResult, LicenseMatch, etc.)
  • common.go — Shared utilities and compiled regex patterns for license filename detection

parsers/ and pkg/ — Legacy v1 code, deprecated and scheduled for removal.

assets/database/ — Database builder that processes 425+ SPDX license definition files into database_keywords.json.

Detection Pipeline

  1. Check if file is binary (null byte detection) — skip unless --binary flag
  2. For files matching license filename patterns (license, copying, mit, apache, etc.): run through LicenceGuesser (keyword → vector space → blended)
  3. For all other files: scan for SPDX-License-Identifier: headers