The short version. This is a free, open-source project under the Apache License 2.0 (opens in a new tab). You can use it at work, in a commercial product, and without asking permission or paying anyone. Keep the license and notice files with any copy you pass on. There is no warranty, and the Cendor name and logo are not included in the grant.
What the license covers
Everything Cendor publishes is Apache-2.0. Two of the artifacts carry a second license for bundled assets, so the table names them explicitly rather than leaving you to find out from a file listing:
| Artifact | Where | License |
|---|---|---|
The seven libraries — core, contextkit, squeeze, tokenguard, guardrails, cassette, acttrace | cendor-* on PyPI · @cendor/* on npm | Apache-2.0 |
| The agent SDK | cendor-sdk on PyPI · @cendor/sdk on npm | Apache-2.0 |
The init scaffolder | cendor-init on PyPI · @cendor/init on npm | Apache-2.0 |
| The MCP docs server | cendor-mcp on PyPI · @cendor/mcp on npm | Apache-2.0 |
| The cookbook recipes | GitHub | Apache-2.0 |
| Cendor Monitor — the self-hosted container image | GitHub Container Registry | Apache-2.0 (code) with OFL-1.1 for the two vendored typefaces |
| Documentation and page content on this site | cendor.ai | Part of the project, under its open-source terms unless a page says otherwise |
Every published package ships its own LICENSE and NOTICE inside the distribution, so the terms travel with the code even offline. None of Cendor's own code is copyleft — there is no GPL or AGPL component in anything Cendor writes or vendors, so nothing you build on it inherits an obligation to publish your own source.
What Apache-2.0 gives you
In the license's own terms, you receive a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free grant to:
- Use it for anything, including commercially and inside closed-source or proprietary products. There is no user cap, no revenue threshold, and no separate commercial license to buy.
- Modify it, fork it, vendor it, and keep your changes private.
- Redistribute it, on its own or as part of something larger.
- Practise the patents the contributors hold over their contributions (§3) — the protection a bare MIT licence does not spell out. That grant terminates if you bring patent litigation over the software (§3).
Two conditions come with it, both light (§4). If you redistribute Cendor — modified or not — include a copy of the license and retain the existing copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices, including any NOTICE file. And if you distribute modified files, mark them as changed. Nothing obliges you to publish your modifications.
What it does not give you
- No warranty (§7). The software is provided "as is", without warranties or conditions of any kind, express or implied — including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. You bear the risk of determining whether it is appropriate for your use.
- No liability (§8). Contributors are not liable for damages arising from use of the software, including lost profits, lost data, or provider costs.
- No trademark rights (§6). The license grants copyright and patent rights; it explicitly does not grant rights to the licensor's trade names, trademarks, or product names. See the name and logo below.
- No compliance guarantee.
acttraceproduces tamper-evident evidence to support a compliance case. It does not make the case, it is not a certification, and nothing in the project or its documentation is legal advice.
The Cendor name and logo
The code and documentation are open source; the Cendor name and logo are not part of the license grant. You may refer to the project accurately — "built with Cendor", "uses cendor-tokenguard" — and you do not need permission to do so. Please do not use the name or logo in a way that suggests your product is official, affiliated, or endorsed. The full brand-use note is in the Terms of Use; for anything unclear, just ask.
Third-party components
Cendor's own code is Apache-2.0, but an installed package brings its dependencies with it, and those carry their own licenses. Two things worth knowing:
- Runtime dependencies are deliberately few. Exact token counting requires a tokenizer, so
cendor-coredepends ontiktoken(Python) andjs-tiktoken(TypeScript). Provider SDKs — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, AWS, and the rest — are optional extras: installing Cendor never pulls one in. - The Monitor image vendors two typefaces — Manrope and JetBrains Mono — under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (opens in a new tab). That is why its aggregate license is stated as Apache-2.0 with OFL-1.1, and it is the only non-Apache term anywhere in the project.
The authoritative dependency list for any release is that package's own metadata on PyPI (opens in a new tab) or npm (opens in a new tab), and each repository's NOTICE file records the attributions its distribution carries.
Attributing Cendor
Attribution is required only when you redistribute the code; using Cendor inside your own application needs no notice at all. When you do need one, this is enough:
- Copyright 2026 Raghav Mishra (PowerAI Labs)
- Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 — apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 (opens in a new tab)
If you are writing about the project rather than shipping it, a link to cendor.ai is welcome and never required.
Who holds the copyright
Cendor is maintained by Raghav Mishra, operating as PowerAI Labs, based in Denmark. It is an independent open-source project, not a registered company, and it sells nothing — there is no paid tier, no hosted service, and no commercial license. Contributors retain copyright in their own contributions and license them under the same terms, as Apache-2.0 §5 provides.
The full text
The plain-language summary above is a reading aid, not a substitute. Where the two differ, the license text governs:
- The Apache License, Version 2.0 (opens in a new tab) — the canonical text at apache.org.
- The identical text ships as
LICENSEin every Cendor repository and inside every published package.
Questions about licensing or brand use: contact@cendor.ai. Related: Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Security & disclosure.