Guardrails / docs

Repository states its licence

docs/license-present@v1

The repository carries a licence file, so what may be done with the code is written down rather than assumed.

Id	docs/license-present
Version	v1
Category	docs
Default severity	warning
Interpreter	python3
Timeout	30 seconds
Violations tolerated	0
Collects	files

Collectors

This guardrail gathers nothing itself. It depends on the collectors below, which the CLI runs once per build before any check, and reads what they found out of GUARDRAIL_FACTS. A collector that collects nothing skips this guardrail rather than failing it.

Collector	Gathers	Inputs it is given
files	Presence, size and line counts of the well known files a repository is expected to carry, plus any extra path the guardrail asks for.	paths

The inputs above are this guardrail's own, passed straight through. Configuring one in buildnote.json changes what is collected, and two guardrails configured the same way share the one collection.

Configuration

{
  "guardrails": {
      "failOn": "error",
      "comment": true,
      "checks": [
          {
              "use": "docs/license-present@v1",
              "severity": "warning",
              "with": {
                  "paths": "LICENSE,LICENSE.md,LICENSE.txt,COPYING"
              },
              "exemptions": []
          }
      ]
  }
}

Inputs

Input	Description	Default	Environment variable
paths	Comma separated paths, any one of which satisfies the guardrail.	LICENSE,LICENSE.md,LICENSE.txt,COPYING	GUARDRAIL_INPUT_PATHS

How to fix

Add a LICENSE at the repository root. For a private repository, state the terms explicitly rather than leaving the file out:

Copyright (c) 2026 Acme Ltd. All rights reserved.
This source is confidential and may not be copied or distributed.

An absent licence is not permissive: without one nobody outside the copyright holder has the right to use the code, which is rarely what a repository with contributors intends, and it is the first thing an acquirer's diligence asks for.

More in docs

• docs/agent-instructions. The repository carries an agent instruction file, and it is long enough to say something and short enough to be read.
• docs/changelog. The repository carries a changelog, so what changed between two releases is written down rather than reconstructed from commits.
• docs/code-of-conduct. The repository carries a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, so the standard contributors are held to is written down and so is who enforces it.
• docs/contributing. The repository carries a CONTRIBUTING.md saying how a change is proposed, built and reviewed.
• docs/readme. The repository has a README, and it says more than its title.
• docs/security-policy. The repository carries a SECURITY.md naming where a security problem should be reported.

All 7 docs guardrails