AI-Friendly CLI Mode ★Server

The default text output of lic is unchanged and remains fully backward compatible: existing scripts require no changes.

The AI-friendly mode is enabled by three global flags:

• --format=text|json|ndjson selects the output channel format
• --quiet (alias -q) suppresses the logo banner and fails fast on interactive prompts
• --strict-exit opts into semantic exit codes

When --format=json or --format=ndjson is selected, stdout carries the structured stream and the human-readable messages are routed to stderr, so the two channels never interleave.

Flags

—format <format>

Selects the output format used on stdout. Allowed values:

lic MyApp.dll --keyfile keys.pem --sign --expiredate 365 --format json > result.json
lic MyApp.dll --keyfile keys.pem --sign --format ndjson | jq -c 'select(.level=="error")'

With json or ndjson the logo banner is suppressed regardless of --logo, so that the first byte on stdout is valid JSON.

—quiet (-q)

Suppresses the copyright banner and every interactive prompt. The only prompt lic has is the password of a PFX key file: with --quiet, a missing --keypwd fails with an explicit error instead of blocking on input, which makes the flag safe for unattended runs on CI runners, in containers and from agents.

lic MyApp.dll --quiet --keyfile signing.pfx --keypwd "$KEY_PWD" --sign

--quiet is independent from --format: it can be combined with the text output to keep human-readable logs without the banner.

—strict-exit

Opts the process into semantic exit codes. Without this flag, lic preserves the legacy contract where 0 means success and 1 means any failure.

The numbers are the same as the obfuscator’s --strict-exit table, so one caller can drive babel and lic from a single exit-code table; the only difference is that code 30 means license processing here and obfuscation there. The classification is also surfaced as exitReason in the JSON result, even when --strict-exit is not active.

lic MyApp.licenses --verify --keyfile keys.pem --strict-exit --quiet
echo "exit=$?"

Schema: lic.cli.v1

All structured payloads carry "schema": "lic.cli.v1" and a kind that tells what the document is: event, result, help or version. The schema mirrors the obfuscator’s babel.cli.v1 but is versioned separately, because the two tools expose different option sets. Within a major schema version, additive changes are allowed; breaking changes will bump the schema name.

Event record

Every message emitted while a run is in progress is mapped to an event:

{
  "schema":  "lic.cli.v1",
  "kind":    "event",
  "ts":      "2026-09-03T06:31:54.1686900Z",
  "level":   "info",
  "message": "License saved to 'MyApp.licenses'"
}

Result envelope

—format=json

A single JSON object is written to stdout when the run terminates. It contains the run-level summary and all events buffered during the run:

{
  "schema":     "lic.cli.v1",
  "kind":       "result",
  "exitCode":   0,
  "exitReason": "success",
  "elapsedMs":  133,
  "warnings":   0,
  "errors":     0,
  "events": [
    { "schema": "lic.cli.v1", "kind": "event", "ts": "2026-09-03T06:31:54.1686900Z", "level": "info", "message": "License saved to 'MyApp.licenses'" }
  ]
}

A failed run reports the failure class in exitReason and the error among the events. Here the input assembly did not exist:

{
  "schema":     "lic.cli.v1",
  "kind":       "result",
  "exitCode":   20,
  "exitReason": "inputNotFound",
  "elapsedMs":  34,
  "warnings":   0,
  "errors":     1,
  "events": [
    { "schema": "lic.cli.v1", "kind": "event", "ts": "2026-09-03T06:30:27.4366510Z", "level": "error", "message": "Error: The specified file '/build/missing.dll' was not found." }
  ]
}

—format=ndjson

Each event is flushed as soon as it is produced, on its own line. After the last event, a final result line is appended, without an events array since the events have already been streamed:

{"schema":"lic.cli.v1","kind":"event","ts":"2026-09-03T06:31:54.3357790Z","level":"info","message":"License saved to 'MyApp.licenses'"}
{"schema":"lic.cli.v1","kind":"result","exitCode":0,"exitReason":"success","elapsedMs":141,"warnings":0,"errors":0}

Machine-readable —help

lic --help --format=json emits a complete description of every public option, suitable for tooling that needs to introspect the CLI surface: shell completions, AI agents, documentation generators.

{
  "schema":  "lic.cli.v1",
  "kind":    "help",
  "version": "12.0.0.0",
  "usage":   "lic.exe <assembly|licensefile> [<other assemblies>...] [options]",
  "options": [
    {
      "name":        "trial",
      "aliases":     [],
      "description": "Add or update trial license restriction",
      "args":        "<key=value>",
      "argRequired": true,
      "argOptional": false,
      "negatable":   false,
      "incremental": false,
      "container":   "hash",
      "type":        "string",
      "group":       "- License Restrictions -",
      "details":     "Set trial restriction properties entering key-value pairs:\n\nid=<id>         Restriction id\nexpire=<date>   Set expiration date\ndays=<n>        Set number of trial days\n..."
    }
  ]
}

A scoped form is also supported: lic --help trial --format=json emits the same envelope containing only the trial option. Hidden and internal options are never returned.

Machine-readable —version

lic --version --format=json emits product, version, runtime and platform information:

{
  "schema":      "lic.cli.v1",
  "kind":        "version",
  "product":     "Babel Licensing",
  "version":     "12.0.0.0",
  "fileVersion": "12.0.0.1",
  "runtime":     ".NET 10.0.0",
  "platform":    "osx-arm64"
}

The platform field uses the .NET runtime identifier (RID) on .NET 5 and later, and a synthetic <os>-<arch> string on legacy targets.

Driving lic From an Agent

An agent that has never seen lic can operate it from the JSON help alone: read the option schema, build the command line from the args and container hints, run with --format json --quiet --strict-exit, and branch on exitReason. A typical loop for issuing a license looks like this:

lic --help --format json > lic-options.json
lic MyApp.dll --keyfile keys.pem --sign --licensee name="Contoso" --expiredate 365 --output MyApp.licenses --format json --quiet --strict-exit > result.json
jq -r '.exitReason' result.json

The same contract, exit codes and flag names apply to the obfuscator command line, documented in AI-Friendly Mode of the obfuscator manual, so one integration covers both tools.

Backward compatibility

• The default value of --format is text; the legacy textual output, exit codes and behavior are unchanged when no new flag is specified.
• Without --strict-exit, the process keeps returning 0 on success and 1 on any failure, so existing gates that branch on $? keep working.
• --quiet is independent and can be opted into without enabling structured output.