diff --git a/.github/workflows/rat.yaml b/.github/workflows/rat.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d3462e0cb6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/rat.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+#
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+# contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+# this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+# The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+# (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+# the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+
+# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions
+
+name: CI
+
+# Controls when the action will run. Triggers the workflow on push or pull request 
+# events but only for the master branch
+on:
+  push:
+    branches: [ master ]
+  pull_request:
+    branches: [ master ]
+
+# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel
+jobs:
+  # This workflow contains a single job called "CheckLicence"
+  CheckLicence:
+    # The type of runner that the job will run on
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+
+    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
+    steps:
+    # Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
+    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+
+    # Runs a single command using the runners shell
+    - name: Licence check with Apache RAT
+      run: bash -ex tool/rat.sh
diff --git a/.pylintrc b/.pylintrc
index 0e5981b5ad..ca4161a07e 100644
--- a/.pylintrc
+++ b/.pylintrc
@@ -1,3 +1,20 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+
 [MASTER]
 
 errors-only=yes
diff --git a/java/pom.xml b/java/pom.xml
index b91d65c52b..1b1428b011 100644
--- a/java/pom.xml
+++ b/java/pom.xml
@@ -31,8 +31,8 @@
         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
         <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
         <configuration>
-          <source>1.5</source>
-          <target>1.5</target>
+          <source>1.8</source>
+          <target>1.8</target>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
     </plugins>
@@ -52,4 +52,41 @@
 	    <scope>compile</scope>
 	</dependency>
   </dependencies>
+  <profiles>
+		<profile>
+			<id>check-licence</id>
+			<build>
+				<plugins>
+					<plugin>
+						<groupId>org.apache.rat</groupId>
+						<artifactId>apache-rat-plugin</artifactId>
+                        <version>0.13</version>
+                        <configuration>
+                        <excludes combine.children="append">
+                            <exclude>rafiki/**</exclude>
+                            <exclude>test/gtest/**</exclude>
+                            <exclude>include/singa/utils/tinydir.h</exclude>
+                            <exclude>include/singa/utils/cuda_utils.h</exclude>
+                            <exclude>src/core/tensor/distribution.cl</exclude>
+                            <exclude>src/model/layer/im2col.cl</exclude>
+                            <exclude>src/model/layer/pooling.cl</exclude>
+                            <exclude>src/proto/caffe.proto</exclude>
+                            <exclude>cmake/Thirdparty/FindViennaCL.cmake</exclude>
+                            <exclude>cmake/Thirdparty/FindOpenCL.cmake</exclude>
+                            <exclude>src/api/numpy.i</exclude>
+                            <exclude>doc/en/docs/notebook/utils.py</exclude>
+                            <exclude>examples/imagenet/inception/convert.py</exclude>
+                            <exclude>tool/cpplint.py</exclude>
+                            <exclude>travis*.log</exclude>
+                            <exclude>.gitmodules</exclude>
+                            <exclude>java/target/*</exclude>
+                            <exclude>miniconda.sh</exclude>
+                        </excludes>
+                        <consoleOutput>True</consoleOutput>
+                    </configuration>
+					</plugin>
+				</plugins>
+			</build>
+		</profile>
+	</profiles>
 </project>
diff --git a/rat-excludes b/rat-excludes
deleted file mode 100644
index dd28d6229a..0000000000
--- a/rat-excludes
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-rat-excludes
-# Apache Rat cannot recognize the license header in jupyter notebooks
-.*\.ipynb 
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/python/cuda_helper.py b/test/python/cuda_helper.py
index 516b9a38c8..36e7e85442 100644
--- a/test/python/cuda_helper.py
+++ b/test/python/cuda_helper.py
@@ -1,3 +1,20 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+
 from singa import device
 
 # avoid singleton error
diff --git a/test/python/test_memoryPool.py b/test/python/test_memoryPool.py
index e69de29bb2..ae0098691d 100644
--- a/test/python/test_memoryPool.py
+++ b/test/python/test_memoryPool.py
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
diff --git a/tool/rat.sh b/tool/rat.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..df28f69031
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tool/rat.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+
+cd java
+mvn apache-rat:check -Pcheck-licence -Drat.basedir=..