Use it freely.
Just don't abuse it.
Semicolony is free for personal and commercial use. Editorial content — guides, simulators, the handbook, the lab notebook — is published under CC BY-SA 4.0. The full text below covers the rest in plain language: what you can do, what you cannot, and what we promise (which is not much, in writing, but a great deal in practice).
CC BY-SA 4.0 — share alike.
Editorial content on Semicolony — guides, handbook entries, lab-notebook experiments, illustrations and inline diagrams — is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence unless otherwise noted on a specific page.
You may copy, redistribute, adapt, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially, provided that: (a) you give appropriate credit to Semicolony, (b) you indicate if changes were made, and (c) you distribute your contributions under the same licence.
The full licence text lives at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. If you use the material without modification — quoting a paragraph, embedding a diagram — the simplest credit is "via Semicolony (semicolony.dev)" with a link to the source page.
What you can do.
Semicolony is meant to be used. Specifically, you may:
- Use any tool, simulator, or guide for personal study, professional work, interview prep, or commercial deliverables.
- Embed outputs the tools generate (formatted JSON, generated passwords, regex examples, etc.) anywhere — these belong to you, not us.
- Quote any page within fair use; quote longer extracts under the CC BY-SA terms above.
- Link freely to any URL on the site. Direct deep links are encouraged. We will not silently change canonical URLs without redirects.
A short list of don'ts.
The following are out of bounds:
- Do not use Semicolony to attack third parties. The certificate parser and password tools are educational; using them in a coordinated attack on a system you do not own is not.
- Do not scrape the site at a rate that degrades service for others. Reasonable mirroring (a few requests per second) is fine; ten requests per second sustained is not. Use the static export from a fork if you need a local copy.
- Do not misrepresent Semicolony's origin or affiliation. The site is independent and not affiliated with any vendor. Don't suggest otherwise.
- Do not republish the site verbatim under your own brand without complying with the CC BY-SA attribution and share-alike terms.
- Do not feed the content into model training corpora. The
robots.txtopts out major AI scrapers; please respect that, even when copying content manually.
Cited but not infallible.
We work hard to keep the guides correct. The Lab Notebook cites sources for every reading; the Handbook cites papers, RFCs, and engineering write-ups. Even so, the web moves and software ships — a number that was right last quarter may be off this one. We treat corrections as the most valuable signal we get; please send them.
Do not rely on any single page as a complete technical reference for a decision that has commercial, legal, safety, or financial consequence. The site is a study aid; it is not professional advice in any regulated field.
As-is, no warranty.
Semicolony and its content are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. The authors and operators of Semicolony make no warranty that the site will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free from harmful components.
Your decisions are yours.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the authors and operators of Semicolony shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages arising out of or in connection with your use of the site or its content — including but not limited to loss of data, loss of profits, business interruption, or claims by third parties — even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
Generate your passwords, validate your JSON, read your guides — responsibly. The knife is in your hand.
External links and references.
Semicolony links extensively to external resources — papers, RFCs, vendor documentation, engineering blogs. These links are provided for reference. The linked content is not under our control, may change without notice, and is not endorsed by Semicolony. Visiting linked sites is at your own discretion under their own terms and privacy policies.
No jurisdiction-specific gymnastics.
Semicolony is offered to a global audience and does not target any specific jurisdiction. Where local law in your jurisdiction requires terms inconsistent with these — for example, where a warranty disclaimer is unenforceable for consumers — those local rules apply to you in addition to (and where they conflict, in lieu of) the relevant section above.
If a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision of these terms invalid, the remaining provisions remain in full force.
Material changes will be dated.
These terms may be updated. The "last updated" date at the top of the page reflects the most recent revision. Material changes — particularly any narrowing of permissions or expansion of restrictions — will be summarised in a brief note retained at the bottom of this page for at least one year.
Continued use of Semicolony after a change indicates acceptance of the updated terms.
Questions about these terms.
The About page lists the canonical contact route. Licence-related questions, attribution clarifications, and reasonable requests for permissions beyond the standard licence are answered when sent in good faith.