DEV Community

Cover image for How to add a license to a GitHub repository in less than 2 minutes ✨
Avneesh Agarwal
Avneesh Agarwal

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at blog.avneesh.tech

3 1

How to add a license to a GitHub repository in less than 2 minutes ✨

Introduction

You should add a license to your open-source projects for making it easier for people to contribute and many hackathons like the ones organized by Hashnode need a license.

Adding the license

  • Go to the repository you want to add the license to and click on Add file
    image.png

  • Now click on Create new file. You will be directed to a page like this

image.png

  • Type License as the name of the file and you should see Choose a license template button in the left corner.

image.png

  • Now choose any License you need from the options given.

image.png

  • MIT is one of the most famous licenses, So I am gonna choose that

  • You can add the two details you are asked for there.

image.png

  • You can either create a new branch and commit the file but I am going to commit it directly to the main branch for simplicity.

image.png

You have added a license to your repository 🎉.

YayCongratsGIF.gif

Now you can add it to your Readme as well. Here is a sample of how it is added in many repositories -

## 📝 License

Copyright © 2021 [Avneesh Agarwal](https://github.com/avneesh0612). <br />
This project is [MIT](https://github.com/avneesh0612/next-progress-bar/blob/main/LICENSE) licensed.
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

It will look like this in your readme

image.png

Useful links-

Git and GitHub Crash course

GitHub

All socials

Postmark Image

Speedy emails, satisfied customers

Are delayed transactional emails costing you user satisfaction? Postmark delivers your emails almost instantly, keeping your customers happy and connected.

Sign up

Top comments (0)

A Workflow Copilot. Tailored to You.

Pieces.app image

Our desktop app, with its intelligent copilot, streamlines coding by generating snippets, extracting code from screenshots, and accelerating problem-solving.

Read the docs

👋 Kindness is contagious

Please leave a ❤️ or a friendly comment on this post if you found it helpful!

Okay