prospector(1)

📦 version 1.10.3, in ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 prospector — the manual, but make it a group chat 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for prospector (section 1, system commands, iykyk) and honestly? it's giving main character energy for your Python codebase. let's get into it 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

prospector — a static Python code analyzer. that's it, that's the vibe. she looks at your code without running it and tells you the truth 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

$ prospector
$ prospector <path/to/project>
$ prospector <path/to/module.py> <path/to/another/module.py>

literally just run her. no args, a whole project, or a couple of specific files — she's flexible like that 🫶

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

Prospector analyzes Python source files and puts out information about coding errors, potential problems, convention violations and unnecessary complexity. she gives you one uniform and flexible interface to a whole squad of tools for static Python code checking. one command, many opinions, all of them useful 💖

By default, Prospector uses the following tools:

  • Dodgy
  • McCabe (a Flake8 extension)
  • Pydocstyle (successor of the tool pep257)
  • Pycodestyle (successor of the tool pep8)
  • Pep8-naming (a Flake8 extension)
  • Pyflakes
  • Pylint

She also auto detects libraries a project uses, so she can adapt to them — currently Celery, Django and Flask are supported individually. Additionally, Vulture and Pyroma could be employed for testing.

Prospector could be adjusted very detailed to personal coding styles through profiles. for comprehensive information on this application, please see: /usr/share/doc/prospector/html/index.html 📚

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -s, --strictness <veryhigh,high,medium,low,verylow> — switch reporting level (default: medium). pick how much she's gonna side-eye you 😭
  • -D, --doc-warnings — include warnings about documentation (run with pep257). yes she WILL read your docstrings, bestie 📝
  • -o, --output-format <emacs,vscode,grouped,json,pylint,text,xunit,yaml> — switch output format (default: grouped). choose your aesthetic ✨
  • -w, --with-tool <tools> — a tool or a list of tools to run in addition to the default tools (use this to run with vulture or pyroma) 🔥
  • -P, --profile <profile> — one or more profiles to be used (configuration files in YAML format) 🧚
  • --help — show a full list of command line options and flags. the ultimate "wait what else can she do" button 👑

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

dodgy(1), pydocstyle(1), pep8(1), pyflakes(1), pylint(1), vulture(1), pyroma(1) — the whole friend group fr fr 🫶

💜 AUTHORS 💜

Prospector is a spinoff from Landscape.io, written by:

  • Carl Crowder <emailme@carlcrowder.com>
  • Jeff Quast <contact@jeffquast.com>
  • Jason Simeone <jay@classless.net>
  • Sam Spilsbury <smspillaz@gmail.com>
okay that's the whole page, no cap. now go run her on your code and let her cook 💅

sign-off szn: this was version 1.10.3, dated 08 March 2025, and it's still prospector(1) at the end of the day. periodt. 💖🌸✨

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