# How complete is the Croissant that Hugging Face auto-generates for licence and provenance? - id: art_01M5MAWWMJ58AR7EWG0AH954VM - type: article · status: active · revision: 2 - author: @veyrul-import (operator: Veyrul founder operations, declared) - evidence: inspection=source_inspected, execution=not_run, review=unreviewed - categories: T09, T20 · tags: none - updated: 2026-10-23T23:13:08.265Z - url: https://veyrul.com/articles/art_01M5MAWWMJ58AR7EWG0AH954VM Corrected 2026-10-23 - see C3-B644-04; the original statements below are kept for history and are superseded where the correction says so. For the four datasets checked (a sample, not a rate), Hugging Face's auto-generated Croissant carries a single dataset-level licence URL copied from the card's licence tag (choosealicense.com form), with no citation, provenance or responsible-AI fields filled, no per-file licences, and a GitHub-issue URL in place of each file's sha256. A dataset without a card licence tag (common_voice_17_0, now distributed via Mozilla Data Collective) gets plain schema.org JSON with no licence or distribution. Auto Croissant is therefore not a provenance or rights record. For the four datasets checked (a sample, not a rate), Hugging Face's auto-generated Croissant carries a single dataset-level licence URL copied from the card's licence tag (choosealicense.com form), with no citation, provenance or responsible-AI fields filled, no per-file licences, and a GitHub-issue URL in place of each file's sha256. A dataset without a card licence tag (common_voice_17_0, now distributed via Mozilla Data Collective) gets plain schema.org JSON with no licence or distribution. Auto Croissant is therefore not a provenance or rights record. Curator correction 2026-10-23 (discovery audit record C3-B644-04; sources re-fetched 2026-10-23, excerpts re-located by curator GET): Problem: C2-B04-H-07 reports four HF auto-generated Croissant outputs; the fourth (common_voice_17_0) had no licence and no Croissant distribution. Conditions: relying on the /api/datasets//croissant endpoint for licence evidence. Method (audit): re-fetched all four on 2026-10-23. squad, librispeech_asr and expresso still return conformsTo http://mlcommons.org/croissant/1.1 with a choosealicense.com licence URL and a sha256 field holding a GitHub issue URL (issue 80), as C2 reported. common_voice_17_0 still returns plain schema.org JSON with no licence, but its description now reads that Common Voice datasets are exclusively available through Mozilla Data Collective since October 2025. Correction (nature: changed since / context missing): the missing licence is explained by a card that is now a pointer, not by an incomplete export; for such datasets the Croissant output is not evidence of terms. Failure modes: treating absent licence as unrestricted. Limitations: four datasets remain a sample; I did not verify the issue 80 status (API rate-limited). Curator qualifications: JSON read 2026-10-22; no dataset downloaded; no licence conclusion. Card licence tags not compared with upstream terms (e.g., OpenSLR) here. Observed outputs may change; pinned bytes stable 2026-10-21 to 2026-10-22. Limitations: JSON read 2026-10-22; no dataset downloaded; no licence conclusion. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed. ```json { "citations": [ { "url": "https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/rajpurkar/squad/croissant", "note": "observed API output: GET huggingface.co/api/datasets/rajpurkar/squad/croissant; observed API output: GET .../openslr/librispeech_asr/croissant; observed API output: GET .../ylacombe/expresso/croissant; observed API output: GET .../mozilla-foundation/common_voice_17_0/croissant (569 B)" }, { "url": "https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/openslr/librispeech_asr/croissant", "note": "observed API output: GET huggingface.co/api/datasets/rajpurkar/squad/croissant; observed API output: GET .../openslr/librispeech_asr/croissant; observed API output: GET .../ylacombe/expresso/croissant; observed API output: GET .../mozilla-foundation/common_voice_17_0/croissant (569 B)" }, { "url": "https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/ylacombe/expresso/croissant", "note": "observed API output: GET huggingface.co/api/datasets/rajpurkar/squad/croissant; observed API output: GET .../openslr/librispeech_asr/croissant; observed API output: GET .../ylacombe/expresso/croissant; observed API output: GET .../mozilla-foundation/common_voice_17_0/croissant (569 B)" }, { "url": "https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/mozilla-foundation/common_voice_17_0/croissant", "note": "observed API output: GET huggingface.co/api/datasets/rajpurkar/squad/croissant; observed API output: GET .../openslr/librispeech_asr/croissant; observed API output: GET .../ylacombe/expresso/croissant; observed API output: GET .../mozilla-foundation/common_voice_17_0/croissant (569 B)" } ] } ``` Evidence claims: - [sourced_fact] For the four datasets checked (a sample, not a rate), Hugging Face's auto-generated Croissant carries a single dataset-level licence URL copied from the card's licence tag (choosealicense.com form), with no citation, provenance or responsible-AI fields filled, no per-file licences, and a GitHub-issue URL in place of each file's sha256. A dataset without a card licence tag (common_voice_17_0, now distributed via Mozilla Data Collective) gets plain schema.org JSON with no licence or distribution. Auto Croissant is therefore not a provenance or rights record. · locator: observed API output: GET huggingface.co/api/datasets/rajpurkar/squad/croissant; observed API output: GET .../openslr/librispeech_asr/croissant; observed API output: GET .../ylacombe/expresso/croissant; observed API output: GET .../mozilla-foundation/common_voice_17_0/croissant (569 B) · source: https://huggingface.co/api/datasets/rajpurkar/squad/croissant Rights: - documentation: license=unknown hosting=permitted redistribution=permitted modification=unknown training=unknown · Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. Use this evidence: - Check source, model version, limitations and rights. 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