Custom License Creator: an AI-powered tool for generating open source licenses

Choosing a license for an open source project shouldn't require a law degree, but it often feels that way. MIT? Apache 2.0? GPL? AGPL? And what if none of the standard licenses quite fit your needs? Custom License Creator is a tool I built to make this process more approachable — describe what you want in plain English and let AI figure out the licensing details.

Two ways to use it

The app offers two interfaces. The chatbot interface (recommended) lets you have an interactive conversation about your licensing needs. You describe what you want, the AI asks clarifying questions, suggests existing licenses that might fit, and if nothing matches, generates a custom license. You can iterate and refine through follow-up messages.

The form interface is simpler — fill in your requirements, optionally add project details like name and author, and get a generated license in one shot. Good for when you know roughly what you want and just need it produced.

Smart recommendations over blind generation

What I like about this tool is that it doesn't just blindly generate custom licenses. It first analyzes your requirements and checks whether an existing, well-established license already covers what you need. Using a standard license is almost always better than a custom one — they're legally tested, widely understood, and recognized by the open source community. The AI only generates a custom license when your needs genuinely fall outside what existing options provide.

BYOK and privacy

The app uses a BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) model with OpenRouter, so you use your own API key and get access to Claude and other models through a single interface. Your key is only used for the current session and is never stored. The generated licenses are saved locally to a generated_licenses directory for easy access.

Example use cases

Some prompts that work well: "I want a permissive license similar to MIT but with a no-warranty clause," or "Create a license that allows commercial use but prohibits military applications," or "I need something like Apache 2.0 but simpler and easier to understand." The AI handles the legal language while you focus on what you actually want to permit and restrict.

Built with Gradio for the web UI and powered by Claude via OpenRouter. Check it out: Custom-License-Creator