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Adding a license to a repository

You can include an open source license in your repository to make it easier for other people to contribute.

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.

Screenshot of the main page of the github/linguist repository. In the right sidebar, "MIT license," preceded by a law icon, is outlined in dark orange.

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.com, navigate to the main page of the repository.

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

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

  4. Under the file name, click Choose a license template.

    Screenshot of the new file form, with "LICENSE" entered in the file name field. A button, labeled "Choose a license template," is outlined in dark orange.

  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. Click Commit changes...

  8. In the "Commit message" field, 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 authors."

  9. 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 pull request." Commit branch options

  10. If you have more than one email address associated with your account on GitHub.com, click the email address drop-down menu and select the email address to use as the 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." Choose commit email addresses

  11. Click Commit new file.

Further reading