Supported Languages

LicenseOps automatically detects the correct comment syntax based on file extension or filename.

Line Comment //

Extension	Language
.go	Go
.rs	Rust
.java	Java
.js, .jsx	JavaScript
.ts, .tsx	TypeScript
.c, .h	C
.cpp, .hpp, .cc	C++
.cs	C#
.swift	Swift
.kt, .kts	Kotlin
.scala	Scala
.dart	Dart
.proto	Protocol Buffers
.groovy	Groovy
.zig	Zig
.m, .mm	Objective-C
.v, .sv	Verilog / SystemVerilog

Filenames: Jenkinsfile

Line Comment #

Extension	Language
.py, .pyi	Python
.rb	Ruby
.sh, .bash, .zsh, .fish	Shell
.pl, .pm	Perl
.yaml, .yml	YAML
.toml	TOML
.dockerfile	Dockerfile
.mk	Makefile
.tf, .hcl	Terraform / HCL
.r, .R	R
.ex, .exs	Elixir
.nix	Nix
.conf	Config files
.cmake	CMake
.ps1, .psm1	PowerShell
.tcl	Tcl

Filenames: Dockerfile, Makefile, Rakefile, Gemfile, Vagrantfile

Line Comment --

Extension	Language
.hs	Haskell
.lua	Lua
.sql	SQL
.ada	Ada
.elm	Elm

Block Comment /* */

Extension	Language
.css	CSS
.scss	SCSS
.less	Less

These languages have no line-comment syntax. Headers use multi-line block comments:

/*
 Copyright 2026 Acme Corp
 SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
*/

For SPDX 1-line mode:

/* SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT */

Block Comment <!-- -->

Extension	Language
.html, .htm	HTML
.xml	XML
.svg	SVG
.vue	Vue

Skipped by Default

These file types are always skipped — they either have no comment syntax or are binary. You cannot add license headers to these types:

Category	Extensions
Data	.json, .lock, .sum, .mod, .map
Images	.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .ico, .bmp, .webp, .tiff
Fonts	.woff, .woff2, .ttf, .otf, .eot
Binary	.wasm, .pdf, .zip, .tar, .gz, .bz2, .xz, .zst, .bin, .exe, .dll, .so, .dylib
Object files	.o, .a, .lib
Media	.mp3, .mp4, .wav, .avi
Minified	.min.js, .min.css
Generated	.pb.go, .patch, .diff

Special File Handling

Shebang Lines (#!/...)

Files starting with a shebang are handled correctly — the header is inserted after the shebang:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

# Copyright 2026 Acme Corp
# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

def main():
    pass

Python Encoding Declarations

Python files with encoding declarations (# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-) have the header inserted after both the shebang and encoding:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

# Copyright 2026 Acme Corp
# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

def main():
    pass

Generated Files

Files containing Code generated ... DO NOT EDIT or @generated markers are automatically skipped when skip-generated: true (the default). This is checked in the first 30 lines of each file.

tip

Use -v (verbose) to see which files are skipped and why.

See Also

• Header Formats — how headers adapt to line vs. block comment styles
• Custom Templates — handling both line and block comment languages in templates
• Use Cases — multi-language project example (use case #11)