What Is Rat?

Apache Rat is a release audit tool, focused on licenses.

Rat Is Used To...?

Use Rat to improve accuracy and efficiency when checking releases for licenses.

Why Develop Rat?

Reviewing releases in the Apache Incubator by hand was error-prone and time-consuming.

Rat arises from the Apache style, but is used more widely. If your release style isn't supported, talk to us.

How Do I Use Rat?

Apache Rat 0.16.1 ships with tooling for

• Apache Ant,
• Apache Maven and
• the command line.

Rat is extensible. If your build tool isn't supported, please contribute a patch or talk to us.

Rat aspires to be self documenting. Please contribute a patch or talk to us whenever Rat falls short.

Who Develops Rat?

Apache Rat is part of the Apache Creadur language- and build-agnostic suite of tools for auditing and comprehending software distributions. Our community develops open source software the Apache way.

Please feel free to contribute a patch, demonstrate a bug, or just talk to us. All welcome :-)

Command Line

Quick start by

java -jar apache-rat-0.16.1.jar --help

Read more here.

Apache Ant

Use the task library for Apache Ant 1.7 or later

Read more here.

Apache Maven

Use the plugin for Apache Maven 3.9.6 or later.

  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.rat</groupId>
    <artifactId>apache-rat-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>0.16.1</version>
  </plugin>

Read more here.