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v56

latestOpenAPI 3.0.3MITraw.githubusercontent.com2026-08-011,4581,08113.3 MB
licenses

Get the license for a repository

This method returns the contents of the repository's license file, if one is detected.

This endpoint supports the following custom media types. For more information, see "Media types."

  • application/vnd.github.raw+json: Returns the raw contents of the license.
  • application/vnd.github.html+json: Returns the license contents in HTML. Markup languages are rendered to HTML using GitHub's open-source Markup library.
get/repos/{owner}/{repo}/license

Path parameters

ownerstring required

The account owner of the repository. The name is not case sensitive.

repostring required

The name of the repository without the .git extension. The name is not case sensitive.

Query parameters

refstring

The Git reference, formatted as refs/pull/<number>/merge, refs/pull/<number>/head, refs/heads/<branch name> or simply <branch name>.

The Git reference for the results you want to list. The ref for a branch can be formatted either as refs/heads/<branch name> or simply <branch name>. To reference a pull request use refs/pull/<number>/merge.

Response

Response

namestring required
pathstring required
shastring required
sizeinteger required
urlstring uri required
html_urlstring uri nullable required
git_urlstring uri nullable required
download_urlstring uri nullable required
typestring required
contentstring required
encodingstring required

Example response

{
  "license": {
    "key": "mit",
    "name": "MIT License",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/licenses/mit",
    "spdx_id": "MIT",
    "node_id": "MDc6TGljZW5zZW1pdA=="
  }
}