ClearlyDefined

Spec sheet

Purpose

ClearlyDefined is an open source project that crowdsources the gathering, curation, and upstreaming of licensing, security, and other data about free and open source projects.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Integrations

The documented provider list includes GitHub, Maven Central, NpmJS, NuGet, GitLab, crates.io, and other package providers.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Access

Users can browse the data in a web UI or connect their systems through the REST API.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

API limits

On the production API, POST requests to definitions, curations, and notices are limited to 250 per minute, while other endpoints allow up to 2,000 requests per minute.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Community support

The project invites participation through its GitHub community and Discord forum.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Curation

Contributors can submit curation changes through the API, where they ultimately surface as pull requests in the configured curation repository.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Data

The project manages harvested data, curated data, and a merge of both, relating data to source code or packages.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Governance

The FAQ says ClearlyDefined is managed by the Open Source Initiative.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Harvesting

ClearlyDefined can harvest component data using tools such as ScanCode and FOSSology.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

License information

Definitions can include declared and discovered licenses, attribution parties, file details, and source information.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Open source terms

The source code is licensed under MIT and the data is distributed under CC0.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Scope limit

ClearlyDefined assigns unique coordinates to components and allows links between them, but says it is not attempting to solve the identity problem.Read 4 Oct 2026 · docs.clearlydefined.io

Plans and prices

Every ClearlyDefined plan and price →

Where Specifiction places it

• Open Source License Compliance Software#10 of 288.0