# Agent Note: Generated third-party notices

Status: implemented

English | [中文](2026-07-30-generated-third-party-notices.zh.md)

## Problem

Open-sourcing this repository requires disclosing the third-party software it depends on, with each project's license. The disclosure has to be complete, has to stay true as dependencies change, and has to say something a reader can act on — which of these packages end up on a user's machine, and which only build and test the repository.

A hand-written inventory answers none of those durably. Roughly a hundred rows of names and license strings derived from manifests drift silently the moment a package is added, removed, or relicensed, and nothing would notice.

## Decision

[`THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md`](../../../../THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md) is generated by [`scripts/gen-third-party-notices.ts`](../../../../scripts/gen-third-party-notices.ts) from the workspace manifests, `vendor/README.md`, the `pyproject.toml` files, and `pnpm-workspace.yaml`. The root README pair links the file from its License section.

**Freshness is maintained, not merely enforced.** A pre-commit job regenerates the file and stages it whenever a generator input is staged — any manifest, a workspace declaration, the root lock file, `vendor/README.md`, a `pyproject.toml`, the generator itself, or the script holding the build-time pin — so an unrelated dependency edit never has to come back and rerun a generator. The committed bytes are then asserted inside [`scripts/gen-third-party-notices.spec.ts`](../../../../scripts/gen-third-party-notices.spec.ts), which the test lane already runs — the check adds no gate process, no scheduler slot, and no separate CI step. `pnpm run verify-third-party-notices` remains available for a standalone check.

One trigger gap is accepted rather than worked around: lefthook inspects only files present on disk, so **deleting** a manifest runs no job, and removing a package reaches the assertion in the test lane instead. Reconstructing the staged file list to include deletions does not work — lefthook filters the list against the working tree either way. The assertion is the backstop for exactly this case.

The file discloses **direct** dependencies by default. The complete npm closure with pinned versions already lives in `pnpm-lock.yaml` (`pnpm licenses list` renders it) and the Python closure in `python/sdk/uv.lock`; re-materializing either as prose would be a second, worse copy. The one explicit transitive disclosure is the official Claude platform payload set declared by `@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk` through `optionalDependencies`, because those packages carry the distributed Claude Code executable rather than ordinary library implementation detail.

**Tiering is by declaring area, not by manifest section.** A package is a runtime dependency when any manifest outside `DEV_ONLY_AREAS` — the root manifest, `packages/test-support/`, `packages/test-support/client-runtime/`, `website/`, `native/` — names it under `dependencies` or `optionalDependencies`. Section names alone are wrong in both directions: a test-support package declares `vitest` under `dependencies` without shipping it, and the root source-run scripts execute through `tsx`, which no manifest declares as a runtime dependency at all (the generator marks it runtime explicitly).

The runtime tier deliberately covers **every mountable plugin**, not just what the CLI, Web UI, and Python runtime load by default. Source execution can mount any plugin package from a user's `cordis.yml`; `@modelcontextprotocol/sdk` and the OpenTelemetry packages therefore reach real users even though no default assembly imports them. Under-disclosure is the costly direction for a legal notice.

The manifest set is derived from the `packages:` members the root `pnpm-workspace.yaml` declares, including the Landlock workspace and its public packages, so a new member area is read the day it is declared rather than the day someone remembers to extend a list. License and repository metadata come from the root workspace's installed pnpm store and package-local link farms, so the generator requires an installed tree and fails loud when a package resolves to neither, rather than emitting an empty cell. `OVERRIDES` carries the packages whose published manifest cannot answer — Rust-built npm bins that omit `license`, and the `modelcontextprotocol/servers` packages whose repository is mid MIT→Apache-2.0 relicensing, so their effective terms are per-contribution. A runtime dependency whose license is not on the permissive list is a hard error: shipping copyleft is a distribution decision, not something a regenerated table may absorb silently. Vendored packages are cross-checked against `vendor/README.md` and rejected if any is not MIT, and `pnpm-workspace.yaml`'s `patchedDependencies` are listed under the runtime table because pnpm applies those patches at install time — shipped artifacts carry modified copies of `@earendil-works/pi-tui` and `node-pty`, and the patch files are the record of what changed.

The project owner separately authorizes distribution of every official `@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk` version and the official Claude Code CLI/platform payloads that version declares through `optionalDependencies`. The generator represents this as one exact direct-package identity exception, not as a permissive-license override: `SEE LICENSE IN README.md` and `SEE LICENSE IN LICENSE.md` remain non-permissive classifications, and every unrelated non-permissive runtime still fails closed. When the SDK is present, the generator reads its installed manifest, rejects optional identities outside the official SDK payload prefix, derives the current SDK, CLI, and payload versions, verifies the installed host payload's identity, version, and declared-license field, and renders the complete SDK-declared payload set in a separate notices section. Version, declared-license, and payload-set changes do not require new identity authorization, but they still require ordinary dependency, lockfile, compatibility, terms, and notices review.

## Testing

The same spec that asserts freshness pins the tiering rule against fixture manifests — including the two cases that motivate it, a `dependencies` entry of a test-support package and a plugin package no app mounts. It also pins the parsers against the shapes that would otherwise drop a package without a word: a `vendor/README.md` table that stops covering a vendored directory, a requirement array holding extras (`"httpx[http2]"`), a requirement with no version at all, an author-named `[dependency-groups]` table, and a workspace member area absent from any hardcoded list. Each of those is a silent-omission path, which is the failure mode a disclosure file cannot afford.

The Claude distribution tests prove that only the exact direct SDK identity bypasses the ordinary non-permissive-runtime rejection, that the bypass does not change license classification, and that the payload set comes from the SDK manifest rather than a version or platform allowlist. Wrong SDK identities, missing payloads, and unrelated optional package identities all fail.

## Alternatives considered

**Keep the hand-written file and review it at release time.** Reviewing a hundred derived rows by eye is exactly the work a generator does correctly, and the file's own claim — that it lists every direct dependency — would be unverified between releases.

**Verify through a dedicated `doc-sync` gate.** That is how every other generated artifact here is checked, and it was the first shape of this change. It costs a gate process and a scheduler slot in a matrix that is already long, and — worse — its only failure mode is telling a contributor, minutes after they pushed an unrelated dependency bump, to go rerun a generator. Regenerating at commit time removes the interruption, and the assertion inside a spec the test lane already runs keeps the guarantee at no additional CI cost.

**Enumerate the full transitive closure.** The closure is thousands of packages, already recorded in the lock files with exact versions, and would bury the direct dependencies that a reader actually evaluates. The file points at the lock files and the `pnpm licenses list` renderer instead.

**Tier by manifest section (`dependencies` vs `devDependencies`).** Mechanically simple and wrong on real data in both directions, as the tiering paragraph above records.

**Tier by reachability from the shipped assemblies only** (`apps/*` plus `python/sdk-runtime`). This produces a tighter runtime tier, but classifies the MCP client and the OpenTelemetry exporter as development-only even though a user running the installed repository can mount them. It understates the disclosure, which is the wrong direction to err for a legal notice.

**Treat the Claude SDK terms as permissive or add a reusable non-permissive allowlist.** Either shape would misstate the upstream declaration and let an unrelated runtime inherit authorization it was never granted. The narrow exception keys only the official direct SDK identity, while its optional payload identities are accepted solely as data declared by that SDK and remain visibly non-permissive.

**Emit the notices as a bilingual pair.** Every other root document is paired, but the file is a table of upstream package names, SPDX identifiers, and URLs; the translatable surface is a handful of section blurbs. `scripts/translation-pairing.ts` scopes discovery to `README*`, `.agents/notes/**`, `docs/**`, and `python/**`, so a root non-README file is outside the bilingual corpus by construction, and the README pair carries the bilingual entry points into it.

## Consequences

A dependency edit now carries a regenerated notices file into the same commit. Contributors pay one generator run — about a second — on commits that touch a manifest, and nothing on any other commit. Committing with hooks disabled defers the cost to a test-lane failure that names the command.

The generator needs an installed tree, which makes it heavier than a pure-source generator, and a new package with unusable published metadata needs an `OVERRIDES` entry rather than silently rendering a blank license. Both failures are loud and name the remedy.

The tiering rule is a policy encoded in one constant. Adding a workspace area that never ships — a second test-infrastructure tier, another site — requires extending `DEV_ONLY_AREAS`, or its dependencies will be disclosed as runtime.

The Claude identity exception is deliberately narrower than the payload disclosure it activates. Upgrading the SDK needs no new owner authorization, but regeneration fails unless the installed SDK exposes its version, CLI version, and at least one official platform payload, and unless the current host payload matches the SDK declaration. Maintainers still review changed terms and compatibility; the generator prevents the authorization from silently widening to another package.
