Registry / devops / pip-licenses-cli

pip-licenses-cli

library4.0.0pypypiunverified

A CLI tool to dump the software license list of Python packages installed with pip. Current version 4.0.0 requires Python >=3.10 and <4. It is a fork of pip-licenses with improved modularization and support for PEP 639 License-File field.

devops observability testing

pip install pip-licenses-cli

github ↗package ↗changelog ↗

INSTALL

IMPORT

SIG · PIP-LICENSES-CLI

pip-licenses-cli

devopspythonv4.0.0

harness data pending

Install & Compatibility

Where this runs

No compatibility data collected yet for this library.

Code

Verified usage

Run pip-licenses-cli as a subprocess and capture JSON output including license files.

import subprocess result = subprocess.run(['pip-licenses-cli', '--format=json', '--with-license-file', '--no-license-path'], capture_output=True, text=True) print(result.stdout)

pip-licenses-cli --version

Debug

Known issues

breakingVersion 4.0.0 changes behavior for packages with UNKNOWN license: they are now omitted from plain-vertical output and result in empty lists in JSON output, whereas previously they were included as UNKNOWN. This may break scripts relying on the old behavior.

fix

Update parsing logic to handle missing license entries. To restore old behavior, open an issue to request a flag.

affects: >=4.0.0

breakingVersion 3.0.0 drops support for Python 3.9. Ensure your Python version is >=3.10.

fix

Upgrade Python to 3.10 or later.

affects: >=3.0.0

deprecatedThe --with-license-file flag combined with --no-license-path is the recommended way to include inline license texts. Using --with-license-file alone will print file paths instead.

fix

Add --no-license-path if you want the license text inline.

affects: all

gotchaConfiguration from pyproject.toml is read from the [tool.pip-licenses-cli] section (not [tool.pip-licenses]). Using the wrong section name will silently ignore your config.

fix

Use [tool.pip-licenses-cli] in pyproject.toml.

affects: all

gotchaThe --ignore-packages flag requires full package names (e.g., 'requests') not versioned or partial names.

fix

Specify exact package names separated by commas.

affects: all

Errors

Common errors & fixes

Command 'pip-licenses-cli' not found

The package is not installed in the current environment.

fix

Run 'pip install pip-licenses-cli'.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pip_licenses_cli'

Trying to import the package directly instead of running it as a CLI tool.

fix

Do not import pip_licenses_cli as a Python module; use 'pip-licenses-cli' as a command-line tool.

Upgrade

Version history

4.0.0latest on PyPI · released Feb 16, 2026

Audit

Dependencies

piprequiredRequired to access installed packages metadata

prettytableoptionalUsed for table output formatting

tomlioptionalUsed for reading pyproject.toml configuration on Python <3.11

boolean.pyoptionalUsed for SPDX expression parsing

Agent activity

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Resources

githubhttps://github.com/stefan6419846/pip-licenses-cli ↗

packagehttps://pypi.org/project/pip-licenses-cli/ ↗

changeloghttps://github.com/stefan6419846/pip-licenses-cli/releases ↗