Developer’s Guide¶

Welcome to the xonsh developer’s guide! This is a place for developers to place information that does not belong in the user’s guide or the library reference but is useful or necessary for the next people that come along to develop xonsh.

Note

All code changes must go through the pull request review procedure.

Making Your First Change¶

Terminal-based workflow¶

The simplified terminal-based workflow to contribute to xonsh:

mkdir -p ~/git && cd ~/git
# For example your name is `snail` and you forked https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh on Github
git clone git@github.com:snail/xonsh.git
# You can setup IDE (see next section) to extremely speed up the work and test.
cd xonsh

# Set git user name. Without `--global` it will work in local repository.
git config user.name "Snail"
git config user.email "snail@email.com"

# Create your feature or fix branch.
git checkout -b my_awesome_feature

# Install dev packages.
# python -m ensurepip --upgrade  # install pip if you have python without pip
pip install -U pip
pip install '.[dev]' '.[doc]'

# Make changes: add new environment variable.
vim xonsh/environ.py
git add xonsh/environ.py

# Create test.
vim tests/environ.py
python -m pytest

# Live test.
python -m xonsh --no-rc

# Push
git commit -m "My new environment variable!"
git push

# Open https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh/pulls
# Use green button to open Pull Request (PR)
# Use Conventional Commits naming e.g.
# "feat: New env variable $SNAIL"

IDE-based workflow¶

You can also use IDE like PyCharm:

Install IDE e.g. PyCharm.
Go to File -> Project from Version Control -> URL https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh

Go to the terminal and update pip and install full dependencies:

# Run from PyCharm terminal with appropriate environment.
python -m pip install -U pip  # you need pip >= 24
python -m pip install '.[full]' '.[dev]' '.[doc]'

Setup IDE e.g. PyCharm:

Create project based on xonsh code directory.
Click "Run" - "Run..." - "Edit Configurations"
Click "+" and choose "Python". Set:
    Name: "xonsh --no-rc".
    Run: choose "module" and write "xonsh".
    Script parameters: "--no-rc -DFROM=PYCHARM" (here "FROM" will help to identify process using `ps ax | grep PYCHARM`).
    Working directory: "/tmp"  # to avoid corrupting the source code during experiments
    Environment variables: add ";XONSH_SHOW_TRACEBACK=1"
    Modify options: click "Emulate terminal in output console".
Save settings.

Open `xonsh/procs/specs.py` and `def run_subproc` function.
Put breakpoint to `specs = cmds_to_specs` code. See also: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/using-breakpoints.html
Click "Run" - "Debug..." - "xonsh". Now you can see xonsh prompt.
Run `echo 1` and now you're in the debug mode on the breakpoint.
Press F8 to step forward. Good luck!

Create git branch and solve good first issue or popular issue.
Create pull request to xonsh.

Changelog¶

Use conventional commits for your git commits and Pull-Request titles
CHANGELOG.md is automatically generated from these commit messages using release-please-action
We squash the Pull-Request commits when merging to maintain linear history. So it is important to use

Style Guide¶

xonsh is a pure Python project, and so we use PEP8 (with some additions) to ensure consistency throughout the code base.

Rules to Write By¶

It is important to refer to things and concepts by their most specific name. When writing xonsh code or documentation please use technical terms appropriately. The following rules help provide needed clarity.

Interfaces¶

User-facing APIs should be as generic and robust as possible.
Tests belong in the top-level tests directory.
Documentation belongs in the top-level docs directory.

Expectations¶

Code must have associated tests and adequate documentation.
User-interaction code (such as the Shell class) is hard to test. Mechanism to test such constructs should be developed over time.
Have extreme empathy for your users.
Be selfish. Since you will be writing tests you will be your first user.

Python Style Guide¶

xonsh follows PEP8 for all Python code. The following rules apply where PEP8 is open to interpretation.

Use absolute imports (import xonsh.tools) rather than explicit relative imports (import .tools). Implicit relative imports (import tools) are never allowed.
We use sphinx with the numpydoc extension to autogenerate API documentation. Follow the numpydoc standard for docstrings.
Simple functions should have simple docstrings.
Lines should be at most 80 characters long. The 72 and 79 character recommendations from PEP8 are not required here.
Tests should be written with pytest using a procedural style. Do not use unittest directly or write tests in an object-oriented style.
Test generators make more dots and the dots must flow!
We use ruff for linting and formatting the code. It is used as a pre-commit hook. Enable it by running:

pre-commit install
pre-commit run --all-files

How to Test¶

Container¶

If you want to run your “work in progress version” without installing and in a fresh environment you can use Docker. If Docker is installed you just have to run this:

python xonsh-in-docker.py

This will build and run the current state of the repository in an isolated container (it may take a while the first time you run it). You can override the default Python and prompt_toolkit versions with --python and --ptk:

python xonsh-in-docker.py --python 3.13 --ptk 3.0.52

Ensure your cwd is the root directory of the project (i.e., the one containing the .git directory).

Nix¶

If you have Nix package manager installed on your system, you can use it instead of Docker to build and run your “work in progress version”. If Nix is configured with experimental features nix-command and flakes enabled, it is as simple as running this in the project directory:

# build and run with a single command
nix run

# or build and then run
nix build  # this builds the package and creates a `result` symlink
./result/bin/xonsh

This will build and run the current state of the repository with Nix. Optionally add -L to the Nix commands to see detailed output when building. If you have new files created and need them to build, make sure they’re added to Git (e.g. using git add), or Nix won’t be aware of them when building the package from flake.

If you prefer not to use flakes, it can also be done in a legacy way:

nix-build nix/ -A xonsh
./result/bin/xonsh

The default Python version used follows the default of nixpkgs-unstable (it is 3.13 at the time of writing this). There are variants using different Python versions declared in nix/default.nix. For example, to use Python 3.14:

# build and run
nix run '.#xonsh-py314'

# build only
nix build '.#xonsh-py314'

# build with legacy nix
nix-build nix/ -A xonsh-py314

Dependencies¶

Prep your environment for running the tests:

pip install -e '.[dev]'

Running the Tests - Basic¶

Run all the tests using pytest. Use python -m pytest to prevent using xonsh code from site-packages if xonsh was installed in the same environment:

python -m pytest -q

Use “-q” to keep pytest from outputting a bunch of info for every test.

Running the Tests - Advanced¶

To perform all unit tests:

python -m pytest

If you want to run specific tests you can specify the test names to execute. For example to run test_aliases:

python -m pytest test_aliases.py

Note that you can pass multiple test names in the above examples:

python -m pytest test_aliases.py test_environ.py

Writing the Tests - Advanced¶

(refer to pytest documentation)

With the Pytest framework you can use bare assert statements on anything you’re trying to test, note that the name of the test function has to be prefixed with test_:

def test_whatever():
    assert is_true_or_false

The conftest.py in tests directory defines fixtures for mocking various parts of xonsh for more test isolation. For a list of the various fixtures:

python -m pytest --fixtures

when writing tests it’s best to use pytest features i.e. parametrization:

@pytest.mark.parametrize('env', [test_env1, test_env2])
def test_one(env, xession):
    # update the environment variables instead of setting the attribute
    # which could result in leaks to other tests.
    # each run will have the same set of default env variables set.
    xession.env.update(env)
    ...

this will run the test two times each time with the respective test_env. This can be done with a for loop too but the test will run only once for the different test cases and you get less isolation.

With that in mind, each test should have the least assert statements, preferably one.

At the moment, xonsh doesn’t support any pytest plugins.

Happy Testing!

How to Document¶

Documentation takes many forms. This will guide you through the steps of successful documentation.

Docstrings¶

No matter what language you are writing in, you should always have documentation strings along with you code. This is so important that it is part of the style guide. When writing in Python, your docstrings should be in reStructured Text using the numpydoc format.

Auto-Documentation Hooks¶

The docstrings that you have written will automatically be connected to the website, once the appropriate hooks have been setup. At this stage, all documentation lives within xonsh’s top-level docs directory. We uses the sphinx tool to manage and generate the documentation, which you can learn about from the sphinx website. If you want to generate the documentation, first xonsh itself must be installed and then you may run the following command from the docs dir:

cd docs/
make html

For each new module, you will have to supply the appropriate hooks. This should be done the first time that the module appears in a pull request. From here, call the new module mymod. The following explains how to add hooks.

Python Hooks¶

Python API documentation is generated for the entries in docs/api.rst. sphinx-autosummary is used to generate documentation for the modules. Mention your module mymod under appropriate header. This will discover all of the docstrings in mymod and create the appropriate webpage.

Building the Website¶

Building the website/documentation requires the following dependencies:

Note that xonsh itself needs to be installed too.

If you have cloned the git repository, you can install all of the doc-related dependencies by running:

pip install -e '.[doc]'

Procedure for modifying the website¶

The xonsh website source files are located in the docs directory. A developer first makes necessary changes, then rebuilds the website locally by executing the command:

cd docs/
make html

This will generate html files for the website in the _build/html/ folder.

You can watch for changes and automatically rebuild the documentation with the following command:

make serve

The developer may view the local changes by opening these files with their favorite browser, e.g.:

firefox _build/html/index.html

Once the developer is satisfied with the changes, the changes should be committed and pull-requested per usual. The docs are built and deployed using GitHub Actions.

Docs associated with the latest release are hosted at https://xon.sh while docs for the current main branch are available at https://xon.sh/dev.

Branches and Releases¶

Mainline xonsh development occurs on the main branch. Other branches may be used for feature development (topical branches) or to represent past and upcoming releases.

Maintenance Tasks¶

You can cleanup your local repository of transient files such as *.pyc files created by unit testing by running:

rm -f xonsh/parser_table.py xonsh/completion_parser_table.py
rm -f xonsh/*.pyc tests/*.pyc
rm -fr build

Performing the Release¶

Releases are automated via GitHub Actions. All workflows for testing, building Python packages, and producing AppImage binaries live in the .github/workflows directory of the repository.

Cross-platform testing¶

Most of the time, an actual VM machine is needed to test the nuances of cross platform testing. But alas here are some other ways to test things

Windows
- wine can be used to emulate the development environment. It provides cmd.exe with its default installation.
macOS
- darlinghq can be used to emulate the development environment for Linux users. Windows users can use Linux inside a virtual machine or WSL to run the same.
- OSX KVM can be used for virtualization.
Linux
- It far easier to test things for Linux. docker is available on all three platforms.

One can leverage the Github Actions to provide a reverse shell to test things out. Solutions like actions-tmate are available, but they should not in any way violate the Github Action policies.

Testing xonsh on Different Operating Systems¶

It is often useful to try xonsh in a clean environment on a distribution other than your own — for example to reproduce a bug report or to validate a change against a pristine setup. The recipes below use rootless podman containers; docker would work just as well if you prefer it.

NixOS¶

podman run --rm -it nixos/nix
nix-channel --update && nix-shell -p xonsh
xonsh
xcontext

Arch Linux¶

podman run --rm -it archlinux/archlinux
pacman -Syu git python-pip
pacman -Syu man-db man-pages bash-completion
git clone https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh
cd xonsh
pip install --break-system-packages '.[dev]' '.[test]' '.[doc]'
python -m pytest

Developer’s Guide¶

Making Your First Change¶

Terminal-based workflow¶

IDE-based workflow¶

Changelog¶

Style Guide¶

Rules to Write By¶

Interfaces¶

Expectations¶

Python Style Guide¶

How to Test¶

Container¶

Nix¶

Dependencies¶

Running the Tests - Basic¶

Running the Tests - Advanced¶

Writing the Tests - Advanced¶

How to Document¶

Docstrings¶

Auto-Documentation Hooks¶

Python Hooks¶

Building the Website¶

Procedure for modifying the website¶

Branches and Releases¶

Maintenance Tasks¶

Performing the Release¶

Cross-platform testing¶

Testing xonsh on Different Operating Systems¶

NixOS¶

Arch Linux¶

Document History¶

Chronicle¶