Licensing scope and dependency review

Specmate adopts AGPL-3.0-only for its core where the applicable rights permit it, matching WireHub. It does not relicense third-party dependencies, assets, or contributors' material automatically. Upstream source repositories retain their own terms.

Separately licensed and private material

Private catalogs, configuration, credentials, deployment adapters, and engineering assets keep their own ownership, visibility and license boundaries. A core software license does not declare these materials public or grant rights to redistribute them.

Independently authored, separate programs may use their own licenses, including proprietary licenses. Specmate's existing versioned API and signed webhook boundaries are the preferred integration seam for such programs. Independence and the specific reuse still require review; an API boundary alone is not a universal exemption.

The starter's add-ons install source into a consuming application. Their modular packaging does not automatically make a resulting combined program independent of AGPL-covered code. A module can retain a compatible license while applicable obligations for the combined work still apply. Proprietary in-process extensions would require an explicitly scoped exception or alternative permission from all relevant rights holders; none is invented here. An exception covering project-authored code cannot override other copyright holders' requirements.

This distinction follows the GNU discussion of separate and combined programs and plugins. Any public network deployment must also account for AGPL source availability; see GNU's application guidance.

Application of the decision

Preserve WireHub's existing AGPL text, notices, and pinned provenance. Preserve native library/model and dependency notices. No CouchCAD pipeline code has been imported; the bounded CAD recipe remains the original Specmate implementation.

The inspected starter revision lacked a root license file. Specmate's root LICENSE and package metadata apply AGPL-3.0-only to the core, with scope and existing package/material licenses preserved in LICENSING.md. The Docker build includes those two documents. Existing capability MIT declarations are unchanged.

Dependency/tool review

Installed direct dependency declarations are recorded in docs/licensing/direct-dependencies.json, tied to the SHA-256 of bun.lock. All 82 direct runtime/tooling declarations are permissive (MIT/MIT-0, Apache-2.0, BSD-2-Clause, or an MIT/Apache choice). This review found no direct dependency requiring Specmate itself to be AGPL.

A broader installed-tree metadata scan found 1,186 distinct name/version entries, including bundled examples and multiple versions, not necessarily 1,186 resolved runtime dependencies. It identified MPL-2.0 Lightning CSS build tooling and fifteen entries without a top-level license declaration. Metadata is not a complete audit; actual license files and the contents of any redistributed artifact still matter. Do not treat that scan as binary distribution clearance.

Native CAD programs are invoked separately through fixed command-line interfaces; their GPL licenses do not alone require the caller or generated engineering designs to use GPL/AGPL. Copying/linking their code or redistributing their binaries would need a separate review. See GNU's output discussion and KiCad's library exception, which expressly permits commercial and closed designs while retaining requirements for redistributed library collections.

AGPL is the chosen policy for this core. The inspected tool invocations and direct dependencies do not require it. Copyright holders can offer other terms for code they control; this does not override third-party contributors' rights.