License map
This repository is not under a single license, and it is not accurate to call it open source as a whole. Five tiers, chosen so that everything a third party needs in order to implement and test the contract independently is openly licensed, while the reference implementation of the contract is not.
| Tier | What | License |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Specification and normative prose | CC BY 4.0 |
| 2 | Normative worlds and vectors | CC0-1.0 |
| 3 | Conformance software | Apache-2.0 |
| 4 | Authorized Recall | Apache-2.0 |
| 5 | Reference implementation | BUSL-1.1 → Apache-2.0 on 2029-09-02 |
| — | The mark in brand/ | excluded from all of the above. All rights reserved. |
The accurate one-sentence summary, and the one to use publicly:
The Agentic Dataset specification, normative vectors, conformance tooling and Authorized Recall implementation are openly licensed for independent implementation and reuse. The reference implementation is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1.
Excluded — the mark in brand/
The Agentic Dataset mark is not covered by any licence in this file. All rights reserved. It is deliberately the one asset here that is not open, for the reason an identifier exists: a mark anyone may adapt identifies nothing, and a specification that may one day want "conforms to AD-001 … AD-015" to carry meaning cannot hand its mark away with its text.
Unmodified use to refer to this project is welcome and needs no permission.
brand/README.md states what that covers. Implementing
the contract needs no permission either, and never touches this exclusion.
Tier 1 — Specification and normative prose · CC BY 4.0
CONFORMANCE.md
packages/agentic-dataset-conformance/src/agentic_dataset_conformance/verbs.md
docs/PORTABILITY.md
docs/RESULTS.md
docs/FINDINGS.md
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE-LLAMAINDEX.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE-ADK.md
README.md, PLAN.md, RELEASE.md, CONTRIBUTING.md
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Quote it, reproduce it, extend it, translate it, build a competing specification on it. Attribution required. Commercial use is permitted — this is CC BY, not CC BY-NC, because a specification nobody may use commercially is not an interoperability specification.
Tier 2 — Normative worlds and vectors · CC0-1.0
packages/agentic-dataset-conformance/src/agentic_dataset_conformance/data/worlds/*.json
packages/agentic-dataset-conformance/src/agentic_dataset_conformance/data/vectors/*.json
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Public domain dedication, including no attribution requirement. This is deliberate and it is the point of the tier: these files are meant to be vendored unchanged into a Rust crate, a Go module, a TypeScript package or a commercial product's test suite. Every condition attached to them is friction against the one outcome this repository most wants.
Tiers 2 and 3 are a published distribution
agentic-dataset-conformance on PyPI carries both: the software under
Apache-2.0 and the normative data under CC0-1.0, declared as the SPDX
expression Apache-2.0 AND CC0-1.0 rather than rounded to whichever is more
convenient. agentic_dataset_conformance/data/LICENSE states the CC0
dedication inside the distribution, so it survives being unpacked somewhere
else.
authorized-recall is a second published distribution, Apache-2.0.
The reference implementation is not published to PyPI. pip install reads
as open source to most people, and shipping BUSL code that way would be
misleading whatever the metadata said.
Tier 3 — Conformance software · Apache-2.0
packages/agentic-dataset-conformance/src/** (interface, runner, CLI, toy, mutants)
conformance/generate.py
conformance/subjects.py
conformance/__init__.py
packages/agentic-dataset-conformance/src/agentic_dataset_conformance/toy.py
packages/agentic-dataset-conformance/src/agentic_dataset_conformance/mutations.py
tests/test_conformance_vectors.py
A third party must be able to build and test an independent implementation,
commercially or not. generate.py is here rather than in Tier 2 because it is
software: CC0 can cover code, but Apache-2.0 gives downstream users clearer
patent treatment.
Tier 4 — Authorized Recall · Apache-2.0
packages/authorized-recall/**
This package imports nothing else in the repository. It is the piece most likely to be used by people who never adopt the architecture — authorization- aware search, multi-tenant retrieval, ABAC/RBAC retrieval evaluation — and there is no strategic gain in making that difficult.
Tier 5 — Reference implementation · BUSL-1.1
src/agentic_dataset/** EXCEPT conformance/ and authorized_recall/
evals/**
examples/**
LICENSES/BUSL-1.1.txt, with parameters filled in:
- Licensor — Alexander Chernov
- Additional Use Grant — production use permitted where not primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation. Research, teaching, evaluation, peer review and personal projects are covered.
- Change Date — 2029-09-02
- Change License — Apache-2.0
BSL is not an open-source license, and the license itself says so. What it guarantees is that this tier becomes one: on the Change Date, or the fourth anniversary of first public distribution, whichever comes first, it converts to Apache-2.0 automatically.
Two notes on the choice.
Why the restriction exists. The reference implementation contains a working expression of authorization-scoped semantic caching, which overlaps a live commercial interest. What Tier 5 restricts is this code. The contract itself is not restricted: the specification is Tier 1, the vectors are Tier 2, and implementing them independently — commercially or otherwise — requires nothing from this tier.
Why it is time-limited. Indefinite source-available licensing would leave the project permanently unable to describe itself simply. The Change Date fixes that on a schedule rather than on a decision.
Commercial licensing
To use Tier 5 commercially before the Change Date:
Alexander Chernov — GitHub @doytsujin · LinkedIn @thedoytsujin
Tiers 1–4 need no such agreement, commercially or otherwise.
Independent reimplementation is explicitly welcome
CONFORMANCE.md (CC BY 4.0) states the fifteen assertions in prose;
the packaged data/vectors/ (CC0) makes them executable. Writing an independent
implementation against them, in any language, for any purpose including a
commercial one, and publishing whether it passes, requires no permission from
anybody. It is the outcome this license map is arranged around.
The assertion identifiers AD-001 … AD-015 may be referred to freely.
© 2026 Alexander Chernov. Tier 5 rights reserved; Tiers 1–4 licensed as above.