Fails to parse license when node_modules directory is present

[kv-mahlberg]

Describe the bug
When node.js packages are installed into the project directory, cargo-about fails to parse the rust dependencies. The problem is resolved by removing the node_modules subdirectory from the project directory.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Create a new crate and add a simple dependency

name = "test-app"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2024"

[dependencies]
random = "0.14.1"

2. Generate license report. This outputs a warning that our application has no license, but successfully generates a report.

> cargo about init
> cargo about generate .\about.hbs -o about.html
2026-08-11T09:21:04.2791767Z [WARN] crate 'test-app 0.1.0' doesn't have a license field
2026-08-11T09:21:04.2956851Z [WARN] unable to synthesize license expression for 'test-app 0.1.0': no `license` specified, and no license files were found

3. Install a node package in the project root.

> npm install license-checker

4. Run cargo about again. This time it fails to generate a report and outputs a very confusing error message.

> cargo about generate .\about.hbs -o about.html
2026-08-11T09:24:47.6023105Z [WARN] crate 'test-app 0.1.0' doesn't have a license field
error: failed to satisfy license requirements
  ┌─ C:\Users\maah\Dev\test\test-app\Cargo.toml:4:42
  │
4 │ edition = "2license = "(Apache-2.0) AND (BSD-2-Clause) AND (BSD-3-Clause) AND (ISC) AND (MIT)"
  │                                          ------------       ------------       ---

2026-08-11T09:24:47.7024076Z [ERROR] encountered 1 errors resolving licenses, unable to generate output

The same error occurs even if I install the node package in a subdirectory:

> mkdir build
> cd build
> npm install license-checker

Expected behavior
Cargo about should not be affected by the presence of node_modules or package.json.

Device:

• OS: Windows 11
• Shell: PowerShell
• Cargo-about version: 0.9.1

Additional context
What I'm trying to achieve is to generate dependency lists from cargo and npm for a Tauri project that has a workspace and the Tauri application in a subdirectory. For this I need license-checker and I don't want to install it in the Tauri package's node_modules and have it listed in the license file so I install it in the workspace root.

[kv-mahlberg]

I found that adding node_modules to .gitignore solves the problem but due to the confusing error message I didn't get to the point of updating the ignore file.

I also realise that this is probably due to the missing license information in the project and that cargo-about is probably searching for a license file. I guess it's expected behaviour to search the directory for a license even though I think it's digging a bit too deep.

The error message, however, could be improved as it is showing a non-existing line.