Provenant

Provenant is a Rust-based code scanner for licenses, copyrights, package metadata, file metadata, and related provenance data. It is an independent Rust implementation for ScanCode-aligned workflows, focused on correctness, safe static parsing, and native execution.

Across documented benchmark targets, Provenant is frequently about an order of magnitude faster than ScanCode while also surfacing broader package and dependency metadata, reducing result noise through documented parser and detection fixes, and supporting practical workflows such as incremental rescans, selected-file scans, and long-lived HTTP service use.

Provenant reimplements the scanning engine in Rust and builds on the upstream ScanCode Toolkit license and rule data.

Important

Project status: production-usable, at parity with ScanCode where intended, and steadily improving. Provenant is at parity with ScanCode for ScanCode-compatible workflows and output formats, aside from intentional non-goals such as ScanCode's plugin system. Ongoing work focuses on improving Provenant's performance, quality, and coverage across supported workflows.

Quick links: Quick Start · Choose a Workflow · Relationship to ScanCode · Why Provenant? · Installation · CLI Guide · Benchmarks · Supported Formats · Migrating from ScanCode Toolkit · Architecture

Quick Start

cargo install provenant-cli
provenant scan --json-pp - --license --package /path/to/repo

Prefer release binaries? Download precompiled archives from GitHub Releases.

Choose a Workflow

If you need to...	Start here	Next doc
Run a one-off CLI scan	provenant scan --json-pp - --license --package /path/to/repo	CLI Guide
Scan explicit changed files in CI or automation	Use --paths-file with one native scan root	CLI Guide
Reuse a warm process through HTTP	provenant serve --help	Serve API Guide
Embed Provenant in a Rust application	Use the provenant library target from provenant-cli	Library Guide
Migrate an existing ScanCode workflow	Start from Provenant's compatibility and migration notes	Migrating from ScanCode Toolkit

Relationship to ScanCode

Topic	Provenant
Implementation	Independent Rust implementation for ScanCode-aligned workflows
Compatibility goal	Strong compatibility with ScanCode workflows and output semantics where practical
Upstream data	Uses the upstream ScanCode license and rule data as a foundational dataset
Migration path	For many ScanCode users, Provenant is a practical drop-in replacement; see the migration guide for documented differences

Why Provenant?

• Benchmark-backed scan speedups that are frequently about an order of magnitude faster than ScanCode on recorded same-host runs
• Broader package and dependency extraction across many ecosystems, including beyond-parity parsers and improvements in overlapping parser families
• Documented parser and detection fixes that reduce noisy results and false-positive classes, including better bare-word GPL/LGPL clue handling
• Package assembly for sibling, nested, and workspace-style inputs
• Native workflows such as --incremental cache reuse, --paths-file rooted file lists for CI or changed-file scans, and long-lived HTTP service mode via provenant serve
• Single self-contained binary with parallel native execution for simpler installation and CI use
• ScanCode-compatible workflows and output formats, including ScanCode-style JSON, SPDX, CycloneDX, YAML, JSON Lines, HTML, and custom templates
• Security-first static parsing with explicit safeguards and compatibility-focused tradeoffs where needed
• Built on upstream ScanCode license and rule data maintained by experts

Installation

From Crates.io

Install the crates.io package provenant-cli:

cargo install provenant-cli

This installs the provenant command-line binary.

Download Precompiled Binary

Download the release archive for your platform from the GitHub Releases page.

Extract the archive and place the binary somewhere on your PATH.

On Linux and macOS:

tar xzf provenant-*.tar.gz
sudo mv provenant /usr/local/bin/

On Windows, extract the .zip release and add provenant.exe to your PATH.

Build from Source

For a normal source build, you only need the Rust toolchain:

git clone https://github.com/mstykow/provenant.git
cd provenant
cargo build --release

Cargo places the compiled binary under target/release/.

Note: The binary includes a built-in compact license index. The reference/scancode-toolkit/ submodule is only needed for developers updating the embedded license data, using maintainer commands that depend on it, or maintaining Provenant's built-in license dataset.

Usage

CLI Scanning

provenant scan --json-pp <FILE> [OPTIONS] <INPUT>...

Note

Provenant requires at least one explicit output flag, such as --json-pp - or --json scan-results.json.

For the command tree, run:

provenant --help

For the complete scan-flag surface, run:

provenant scan --help

Example

provenant scan --json-pp scan-results.json --license --package ~/projects/my-codebase --ignore "*.git*" --ignore "target/*" --ignore "node_modules/*"

Use - as FILE to write an output stream to stdout, for example --json-pp -. Multiple output flags can be used in a single run, matching ScanCode CLI behavior. When using --from-json, you can pass multiple JSON inputs. Native directory scans also support multiple input paths, matching ScanCode's common-prefix behavior. For guided workflows, flag combinations, cache controls, and stdin-driven file lists, see the CLI Guide.

HTTP Service

For the current service shell surface, run:

provenant serve --help

provenant serve runs Provenant as a long-lived HTTP service with warm process reuse, synchronous and asynchronous scan endpoints, and job polling for automation-friendly integrations.

For the HTTP request/response contract and examples, see the Serve API Guide.

Rust Library

If you want to embed Provenant in a Rust application instead of invoking the CLI, use the crates.io package provenant-cli and import the library target as provenant.

For the supported high-level Rust embedding path and dependency setup, see the Library Guide.

Output Formats

Implemented output formats include:

• JSON, including ScanCode-compatible output
• YAML
• JSON Lines
• Debian copyright
• SPDX, Tag-Value and RDF/XML
• CycloneDX, JSON and XML
• HTML report
• Custom template rendering

Documentation

• Library Guide - Programmatic embedding guidance for using Provenant from Rust
• Serve API Guide - HTTP API usage, examples, and current service contract for provenant serve
• Documentation Index - Best starting point for navigating the docs set
• CLI Guide - Common workflows and important flag combinations
• Migrating from ScanCode Toolkit - Practical migration notes for ScanCode users, especially power-user workflows
• Architecture - System design, processing pipeline, and design decisions
• Supported Formats - Generated support matrix for package ecosystems and package-adjacent detection surfaces
• How to Add a Parser - Step-by-step guide for adding new parsers
• Testing Strategy - Testing approach and guidelines
• ADRs - Architectural decision records
• Beyond-Parity Improvements - Features where Rust exceeds the Python original

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please feel free to submit a pull request.

For contributor workflow and contribution policy, start with CONTRIBUTING.md. Inbound contributions use the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) 1.1, so commits should be signed off with git commit -s; see DCO and CONTRIBUTING.md for the policy details.

For deeper contributor documentation, see the Documentation Index, How to Add a Parser, and Testing Strategy.

Support and Acknowledgements

Provenant is an independent open source project developed by its contributors. Its development has been made possible in substantial part by support from TNG Technology Consulting GmbH, including paid contributor time on internal non-client work, compute and inference resources provided by TNG's internal GPU cluster, Skainet, and company-funded usage of third-party AI models. Without that support, Provenant would not have been possible in its current scope and form.

A substantial portion of Provenant's development has been contributed by people working on the project as TNG employees, and work on the project has been done both during TNG-supported work time and during personal unpaid time. For a fuller acknowledgement of project support, see ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md.

Upstream Data and Attribution

Provenant is an independent Rust implementation inspired by ScanCode Toolkit. It relies on the upstream ScanCode Toolkit project by nexB Inc. and the AboutCode community for reference behavior, compatibility validation, and the license and rule data maintained by that ecosystem. Provenant code is licensed under Apache-2.0; included ScanCode-derived rule and license data remains subject to upstream attribution and CC-BY-4.0 terms where applicable. We are grateful to nexB Inc. and the AboutCode community for the reference implementation and the extensive license and copyright research behind it. See NOTICE for preserved upstream attribution notices applicable to materials included in this repository and to distributions that include ScanCode-derived data.

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Provenant contributors.

The Provenant project code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See NOTICE for preserved upstream attribution notices for included ScanCode Toolkit materials.