xtask: drop the licences --check gate; THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt is a release artifact

The file is no longer committed: dependency pull requests from forks failed CI only because
it was out of date. The Dependabot workflow that regenerated it is gone. licences now fails
when a shipped crate names no licence and carries no licence file.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01UhhZMBTviDQxZvwnyP89fo

.gitignore

@@ -7,3 +7,4 @@
 .DS_Store
 *.swp
 __pycache__/
+/THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt

AGENTS.md

@@ -120,8 +120,8 @@ People trust FieldCraft with their models; a crash loses their work. **This outr
      Then remove your worktree and delete your local branch.
   5. Never run the full gate locally: no `cargo xtask ci`, no `cargo clippy --workspace`, no
      `cargo xtask wasm` or `oracle` unless step 2 calls for it. Never watch CI. GitHub CI runs
-     `cargo xtask ci` (fmt, assets, licences, layers, clippy -D warnings, tests, wasm), the
+     `cargo xtask ci` (fmt, assets, layers, clippy -D warnings, tests, wasm), the
-     oracle, the heavy tests and the advisories once per merge on `develop`; the coordinator
+     oracle, the heavy tests and the dependency licences and advisories once per merge on `develop`; the coordinator
      watches it and sends a failure back to the change that caused it, which is fixed forward
      at once.
 - **Keep the trunk gate fast** (under ~3 minutes on CI). A test that takes more than a few seconds

NOTICE

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ Licensed under the MIT License or the Apache License, Version 2.0, at your optio
 Third-party material
 
 Software dependencies are listed in Cargo.lock; their licences are in THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt
-(`cargo xtask licences`). Geometry comes from SolidCraft (https://github.com/bherbruck/solidcraft,
+(generated by `cargo xtask licences`, in every release package). Geometry comes from SolidCraft (https://github.com/bherbruck/solidcraft,
 MIT OR Apache-2.0), which builds on the truck crates (https://github.com/ricosjp/truck, Apache-2.0,
 Copyright (c) RICOS Co. Ltd.), some with SolidCraft's modifications.
 

README.md

@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ against a closed form or a reference solution ([docs/examples.md](docs/examples.
 ## Build
 
 ```sh
-cargo xtask ci                                  # fmt, assets, licences, layers, clippy, tests, wasm
+cargo xtask ci                                  # fmt, assets, layers, clippy, tests, wasm
 cargo xtask test --heavy                        # the heavy (ignored) tests and the doc tests
 cargo run -p fieldcraft-cli -- commands         # every command and its parameters
 cargo run -p fieldcraft-cli -- run script.json  # run a command script
@@ -148,7 +148,8 @@ you review and submit yourself, with your session or model attached only if you
 ## License
 
 Dual-licensed under [MIT](LICENSE-MIT) or [Apache-2.0](LICENSE-APACHE), at your option. Notices
-are in [NOTICE](NOTICE); third-party licences in [THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt](THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt).
+are in [NOTICE](NOTICE); third-party licences in
+THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt, which every release package carries (`cargo xtask licences` writes it).
 
 FieldCraft is an independent project, not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Dassault
 Systèmes, MSC Software, Siemens or Ansys. Abaqus, Nastran, MSC Nastran, Simcenter Nastran and

docs/releasing.md

@@ -17,6 +17,10 @@ are in `packaging/` and run the same way on a developer machine.
 Plus `SHA256SUMS.txt`, its signature `SHA256SUMS.txt.minisig` (below), and the notes from `.github/release-notes.md` followed by GitHub's
 generated list of changes. Every package carries `README.md`, `LICENSE-MIT`, `LICENSE-APACHE`,
 `NOTICE` and `THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt` (on macOS in `FieldCraft.app/Contents/Resources/Licenses`).
+`THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt` is not committed: each packaging job runs `cargo xtask licences` first,
+which fails when a shipped crate names no licence and carries no licence file, and the release
+attaches the file on its own too. Which licences a dependency may have is `[licenses]` in
+`deny.toml`, which CI checks on every pull request (`cargo deny check licenses`).
 The application id is `io.github.jyviko.fieldcraft`: the macOS bundle id, the Linux `.desktop`
 entry and icon name, and the window's Wayland app_id / X11 class. The icons come from
 `assets/app-icon`: `icon.icns` and `Assets.car` (macOS 26 and later) in the app bundle,

xtask/src/licences.rs

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
-//! `cargo xtask licences [--check]`: THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt, the licences of every crate built
+//! `cargo xtask licences`: THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt, the licences of every crate built into the
-//! into the shipped programs (fieldcraft, fieldcraft-cli, fieldcraft-web), read from
+//! shipped programs (fieldcraft, fieldcraft-cli, fieldcraft-web), read from `cargo metadata` and
-//! `cargo metadata` and the crates' own licence files, so a release download can carry them.
+//! the crates' own licence files. The release workflow generates it before packaging, so every
-//! `--check` (part of `cargo xtask ci`) fails when the committed file is out of date, e.g. after a
+//! download carries it; it is not committed. Which licences are allowed is cargo-deny's
-//! dependency changed.
+//! `[licenses]` policy (deny.toml), checked on every pull request.
 
 use std::collections::{BTreeMap, BTreeSet, VecDeque};
 use std::path::Path;
@@ -14,17 +14,9 @@ use crate::cargo;
 pub const FILE: &str = "THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt";
 const ROOTS: &[&str] = &["fieldcraft", "fieldcraft-cli", "fieldcraft-web"];
 
-pub fn run(root: &Path, check: bool) -> Result<(), String> {
+pub fn run(root: &Path) -> Result<(), String> {
     let text = generate()?;
     let path = root.join(FILE);
-    if check {
-        let old = std::fs::read_to_string(&path).unwrap_or_default();
-        if old.replace("\r\n", "\n") != text {
-            return Err(format!("{FILE} is out of date (dependencies changed): run `cargo xtask licences` and commit it"));
-        }
-        println!("licences: {FILE} is up to date");
-        return Ok(());
-    }
     std::fs::write(&path, &text).map_err(|e| format!("{}: {e}", path.display()))?;
     println!("licences: wrote {FILE} ({} KB)", text.len() / 1024);
     Ok(())
@@ -87,6 +79,12 @@ fn generate() -> Result<String, String> {
         });
     }
     crates.sort_by(|a, b| (&a.name, &a.version).cmp(&(&b.name, &b.version)));
+    // A package must say what its licence is: a release never ships a crate it cannot account for.
+    let unresolved: Vec<String> =
+        crates.iter().filter(|c| c.license.is_empty() && c.files.is_empty()).map(|c| format!("{} {}", c.name, c.version)).collect();
+    if !unresolved.is_empty() {
+        return Err(format!("no licence (Cargo.toml `license` or a licence file) for: {}", unresolved.join(", ")));
+    }
     Ok(render(&crates))
 }
 

xtask/src/main.rs

@@ -27,9 +27,8 @@ commands:
   app-icon        draw the application icon family (assets/app-icon) with VectorCraft, then
                   write the iconset, icns, ico and Icon Composer document (macOS: sips,
                   iconutil, magick; actool for Assets.car when available)
-  licences [--check]
+  licences        write THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt (the licences of every shipped crate; the
-                  write THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt (the licences of every shipped crate);
+                  release workflow runs it before packaging, the file is not committed)
-                  --check fails when it is out of date
   test [--heavy] [CARGO ARGS] [-- TEST ARGS]
                   build the tests with the ci profile, then run every test binary at once;
                   --heavy runs only the ignored tests instead (heavy verification and corpus
@@ -44,7 +43,7 @@ commands:
                   --bless freezes a passing case's results in its fixture.json; --quick skips
                   cases marked slow (release build)
   wasm            cargo check every library crate and the web app for wasm32-unknown-unknown
-  ci              fmt --check, assets, licences --check, layers, clippy -D warnings, then the tests
+  ci              fmt --check, assets, layers, clippy -D warnings, then the tests
                   (not the heavy ones) with the wasm check alongside (stops at the first failing
                   step)
 ";
@@ -57,7 +56,7 @@ fn main() -> ExitCode {
         Some("assets") => assets::run(&root()),
         Some("icons") => icons::run(&root(), &rest),
         Some("app-icon") => app_icon::run(&root()),
-        Some("licences") => licences::run(&root(), rest.contains(&"--check")),
+        Some("licences") => licences::run(&root()),
         Some("test") => {
             let (heavy, rest) = match rest.split_first() {
                 Some((&"--heavy", after)) => (true, after),
@@ -200,7 +199,6 @@ fn cmd_ci() -> Result<(), String> {
     c.args(["fmt", "--all", "--", "--check"]);
     run(c, "cargo fmt --check")?;
     assets::run(&root())?;
-    licences::run(&root(), true)?;
     cmd_layers()?;
     let mut c = cargo();
     c.args(["clippy", "--workspace", "--all-targets", "--profile", "ci", "--", "-D", "warnings"]);