aid: acknowledgments-md
url: >-
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/acknowledgments-md/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
tags:
  - Attribution
  - Documentation
  - Licensing
  - Open Source
  - Repository
  - Standards
description: >-
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md is a standardized file convention used in open source
  repositories to credit third-party software, libraries, inspirations, and
  other works that a project builds upon or is indebted to. It is a common
  practice for documenting attribution and provenance, complementing LICENSE,
  README, CONTRIBUTING, and CODE_OF_CONDUCT files as part of a healthy open
  source project structure. The file typically lists dependencies, their
  copyright holders, and the licenses under which they are distributed.
created: '2025-01-01'
modified: '2026-04-19'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis: []
common:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/licensing-a-repository
    name: GitHub Repository Licensing Guide
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://contributing.md/
    name: CONTRIBUTING.md Open Source Guides
  - type: Features
    data:
      - name: Attribution Documentation
        description: >-
          Provides a standardized location to document all third-party libraries,
          frameworks, and tools used in a project, along with their copyright
          holders and licenses.
      - name: License Compliance
        description: >-
          Helps projects maintain compliance with open source licenses that
          require attribution, such as MIT, BSD, Apache 2.0, and Creative Commons.
      - name: Contributor Recognition
        description: >-
          Acknowledges individuals and organizations that contributed to the
          project, beyond the primary maintainers listed in other files.
      - name: Provenance Tracking
        description: >-
          Documents the origins of code, designs, or concepts that influenced
          the project, providing clear provenance for legal and audit purposes.
  - type: UseCases
    data:
      - name: Open Source Projects
        description: >-
          Used in open source repositories to document all third-party
          dependencies, their licenses, and copyright notices for compliance.
      - name: Corporate Software Releases
        description: >-
          Required by many corporate open source release policies to document
          all third-party components before releasing software publicly.
      - name: Academic and Research Projects
        description: >-
          Used in academic repositories to cite datasets, tools, and prior work
          that the research builds upon.
      - name: Documentation Projects
        description: >-
          Applied to documentation repositories to credit sources, frameworks,
          and tools used to generate or host the documentation.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com