Nitpick

Command-line tool and flake8 plugin to enforce the same settings across multiple language-independent projects.

Useful if you maintain multiple projects and are tired of copying/pasting the same INI/TOML/YAML/JSON keys and values over and over, in all of them.

The CLI now has a nitpick fix command that modifies configuration files directly (pretty much like black and isort do with Python files). See the CLI documentation for more info.

Many more features are planned for the future, check the roadmap.

The style file

A "Nitpick code style" is a TOML file with the settings that should be present in config files from other tools.

Example of a style:

["pyproject.toml".tool.black]
line-length = 120

["pyproject.toml".tool.poetry.group.dev.dependencies]
pylint = "*"

["setup.cfg".flake8]
ignore = "D107,D202,D203,D401"
max-line-length = 120
inline-quotes = "double"

["setup.cfg".isort]
line_length = 120
multi_line_output = 3
include_trailing_comma = true
force_grid_wrap = 0
combine_as_imports = true

This style will assert that:

• ... black, isort and flake8 have a line length of 120;
• ... flake8 and isort are configured as above in setup.cfg;
• ... Pylint is present as a Poetry dev dependency in pyproject.toml.

Supported file types

These are the file types currently handled by Nitpick.

• Some files are only being checked and have to be modified manually;
• Some files can already be fixed automatically (with the nitpick fix command);
• Others are still under construction; the ticket numbers are shown in the table (upvote the ticket with 👍🏻 if you would like to prioritise development).

Implemented

Planned

Style Library (Presets)

Nitpick has a builtin library of style presets, shipped as Python resources.

This library contains building blocks for your your custom style. Just choose styles from the table below and create your own style, like LEGO.

Read how to:

• ...add multiple styles to the configuration file;
• ...include styles inside a style.

any

javascript

kotlin

markdown

presets

proto

python

shell

toml

Quickstart

Install

Install in an isolated global environment with pipx:

# Latest PyPI release
pipx install nitpick

# Development branch from GitHub
pipx install git+https://github.com/andreoliwa/nitpick

On macOS/Linux, install the latest release with Homebrew:

brew install andreoliwa/formulae/nitpick

# Development branch from GitHub
brew install andreoliwa/formulae/nitpick --HEAD

On Arch Linux, install with yay:

yay -Syu nitpick

Add to your project with uv:

uv add --dev nitpick

Add to your project with Poetry:

poetry add --dev nitpick

Or install it with pip:

pip install -U nitpick

Run

Nitpick will fail if no style is explicitly configured. Run this command to download and use the opinionated default style file:

nitpick init

You can use it as a template to configure your own style.

To fix and modify your files directly:

nitpick fix

To check for errors only:

nitpick check

Nitpick is also a flake8 plugin, so you can run this on a project with at least one Python (.py) file:

flake8 .

Run as a pre-commit hook

If you use pre-commit on your project, add this to the .pre-commit-config.yaml in your repository:

There are a few hook IDs available. The recommendation is to choose nitpick-suggest and one of the fix/check hooks.

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/andreoliwa/nitpick
    rev: v0.38.1
    hooks:
      # This hook runs the `nitpick init --fix --suggest` command
      - id: nitpick-suggest

      # Choose only one of the "fix" or "check" hooks.
      # These hooks run the `nitpick fix` command
      - id: nitpick
      # - id: nitpick-fix-all # same as nitpick
      # - id: nitpick-fix
      # These hooks run the `nitpick check` command
      # - id: nitpick-check-all
      # - id: nitpick-check

If you want to run Nitpick as a flake8 plugin instead:

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/PyCQA/flake8
    rev: 4.0.1
    hooks:
      - id: flake8
        additional_dependencies: [nitpick]

To install the pre-commit and commit-msg Git hooks using prek (pre-commit re-engineered in Rust):

prek install --install-hooks
prek install -t commit-msg

To start checking all your code against the default rules:

prek run --all-files

Run as a MegaLinter plugin

If you use MegaLinter you can run Nitpick as a plugin. Add the following two entries to your .mega-linter.yml configuration file:

PLUGINS:
  - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/andreoliwa/nitpick/v0.38.1/mega-linter-plugin-nitpick/nitpick.megalinter-descriptor.yml
ENABLE_LINTERS:
  - NITPICK

More information

Nitpick is being used by projects such as:

• sobolevn/django-split-settings
• catalyst-team/catalyst
• alan-turing-institute/AutSPACEs

For more details on styles and which configuration files are currently supported, see the full documentation.

Contributing

Your help is very much appreciated.

There are many possibilities for new features in this project, and not enough time or hands to work on them.

If you want to contribute with the project, set up your development environment following the steps on the contribution guidelines and send your pull request.