Provenant

Provenant is a Rust-based code scanner for licenses, 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.

On recorded package-detection targets, Provenant is frequently about an order of magnitude faster than ScanCode while also surfacing broader package and dependency metadata, cleaner, lower-noise results on many documented targets, and workflows such as incremental rescans and --paths-file selected-file scanning.

Provenant reimplements the scanning engine in Rust while continuing to use the upstream ScanCode Toolkit license and rule data. That expert-maintained dataset is foundational to Provenant's work; the goal is to preserve and build on it, not replace it.

Quick Start

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

Prefer release binaries? Download precompiled archives from GitHub Releases.

Why Provenant?

• Benchmark-backed package-detection 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
• Native workflows such as --incremental cache reuse and --paths-file rooted file lists for CI or changed-file scans
• Single self-contained binary 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

Project Status

Status: active, usable, and under rapid development. Provenant already supports production-style scanning workflows and many ScanCode-compatible outputs, while compatibility gaps and edge cases are still being closed.

Relationship to ScanCode

• Provenant is an independent Rust implementation inspired by ScanCode Toolkit.
• It aims for strong compatibility with ScanCode workflows and output semantics where practical.
• It continues to use the upstream ScanCode license and rule data.
• Provenant does not replace the value of upstream rule curation; it provides a Rust scanning engine around that expert-maintained knowledge base.
• For a concise side-by-side overview, see Provenant and ScanCode Toolkit.
• If you are moving an existing ScanCode power-user workflow, see Migrating from ScanCode Toolkit.

Features

• Single, self-contained binary
• Parallel scanning with native concurrency
• Broad package-manifest and lockfile coverage across many ecosystems
• Cleaner normalization and lower-noise detection results from documented parser and detection fixes
• Package assembly for sibling, nested, and workspace-style inputs
• Include and exclude filtering, path normalization, and scan-result filtering
• Incremental reuse for repeated scans of the same tree
• Explicit rooted selected-file scans via --paths-file
• Security-first parsing with explicit safeguards and compatibility-focused tradeoffs where needed

Installation

From Crates.io

Install the Provenant package from crates.io under the crate name provenant-cli:

cargo install provenant-cli

This installs the provenant 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/.

The default build enables the rpm-sqlite Cargo feature, which keeps native RPM SQLite database parsing available. If you do not need that parser-or you are embedding Provenant in a project that cannot currently absorb the rusqlite dependency-you can build without default features:

cargo build --release --no-default-features

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.

Use as a Library

The published crate name is provenant-cli, while the library target is imported as provenant.

If you want the smallest dependency surface and do not need RPM SQLite database parsing:

[dependencies]
provenant = { package = "provenant-cli", version = "0.0.12", default-features = false }

If you do need RPM SQLite parsing, opt back into the feature explicitly:

[dependencies]
provenant = { package = "provenant-cli", version = "0.0.12", default-features = false, features = ["rpm-sqlite"] }

Cargo Features

Provenant currently exposes these Cargo features:

Feature	Default	Purpose
rpm-sqlite	Yes	Enables RPM SQLite database parsing and pulls in rusqlite.
golden-tests	No	Compiles the repository's slower golden-test suites for maintainer and CI workflows.

Usage

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

At least one output option is required.

For the complete CLI surface, run:

provenant --help

For guided workflows and important flag combinations, see the CLI Guide.

Example

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

Highlighted Workflows

For PR-scoped or CI-selected scans, use --paths-file with one explicit scan root instead of expanding the file list into positional args:

provenant --json-pp scan-results.json --license /path/to/repo --paths-file changed-files.txt

For repeated scans of the same checkout, use --incremental so Provenant can reuse unchanged file results from the shared cache:

provenant --json-pp scan-results.json --license --package --incremental /path/to/repo

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 more workflow details, including cache controls and stdin-driven file lists, see the CLI Guide.

For the generated package-format support matrix, see Supported Formats.

Performance

Provenant has maintained package-detection benchmarks against ScanCode on specific recorded targets. Across those same-host recorded runs, Provenant is frequently about an order of magnitude faster while also delivering broader package and dependency extraction, cleaner normalization, or other documented end-state improvements on many listed targets. See Package Detection Benchmarks for the exact targets, timings, machine context, and benchmark scope.

These results apply only to those recorded package-detection runs; they are not a blanket claim about every scan mode, target, or environment. For implementation details, see Architecture: Performance Characteristics.

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

Output architecture and compatibility approach are documented in:

• Architecture
• Testing Strategy

Documentation

• Documentation Index - Best starting point for navigating the docs set
• CLI Guide - Common workflows and important flag combinations
• Provenant and ScanCode Toolkit - Relationship, trust model, and high-level comparison notes
• 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 file formats
• 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, 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 uses the upstream ScanCode Toolkit project by nexB Inc. and the AboutCode community as a reference for compatibility, behavior, and parity validation, and it continues to rely on the upstream ScanCode 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.