# Configuration reference

Coverage.py options can be specified in a configuration file. This makes it easier to re-run coverage.py with consistent settings, and also allows for specification of options that are otherwise only available in the API.

Configuration files also make it easier to get coverage testing of spawned sub-processes. See Measuring sub-processes for more details.

The default name for the configuration file is `.coveragerc`, in the same directory coverage.py is being run in. Most of the settings in the configuration file are tied to your source code and how it should be measured, so it should be stored with your source, and checked into source control, rather than put in your home directory.

A different location for the configuration file can be specified with the `--rcfile=FILE` command line option or with the `COVERAGE_RCFILE` environment variable.

Coverage.py will read settings from other usual configuration files if no other configuration file is used. It will automatically read from “setup.cfg” or “tox.ini” if they exist. In this case, the section names have “coverage:” prefixed, so the `[run]` options described below will be found in the `[coverage:run]` section of the file.

Coverage.py will read from “pyproject.toml” if TOML support is available, either because you are running on Python 3.11 or later, or because you installed with the `toml` extra (`pip install coverage[toml]`).

## Syntax

The specific syntax of a configuration file depends on what type it is. All configuration files are assumed to be in INI format, unless their file extension is .toml, which are TOML.

### INI Syntax

A coverage.py configuration file is in classic .ini file format: sections are introduced by a `[section]` header, and contain `name = value` entries. Lines beginning with `#` or `;` are ignored as comments.

Strings don’t need quotes. Multi-valued strings can be created by indenting values on multiple lines.

Boolean values can be specified as `on`, `off`, `true`, `false`, `1`, or `0` and are case-insensitive.

### TOML Syntax

TOML syntax uses explicit lists with brackets, and strings with quotes. Booleans are in `true` or `false`.

Configuration must be within the `[tool.coverage]` section, for example, `[tool.coverage.run]`. Environment variable expansion in values is available, but only within quoted strings, even for non-string values.

### Environment variables

Environment variables can be substituted in by using dollar signs: `$WORD` or `${WORD}` will be replaced with the value of `WORD` in the environment. A dollar sign can be inserted with `$$`. Special forms can be used to control what happens if the variable isn’t defined in the environment:

- If you want to raise an error if an environment variable is undefined, use a question mark suffix: `${WORD?}`.

- If you want to provide a default for missing variables, use a dash with a default value: `${WORD-default value}`.

- Otherwise, missing environment variables will result in empty strings with no error.

### Sample file

Here’s a sample configuration file, in each syntax:

The specific configuration settings are described below. Many sections and settings correspond roughly to commands and options in the command-line interface.

## [run]

These settings are generally used when running product code, though some apply to more than one command.

### [run] branch

(boolean, default False) Whether to measure branch coverage in addition to statement coverage.

### [run] command_line

(string) The command-line to run your program. This will be used if you run `coverage run` with no further arguments. Coverage.py options cannot be specified here, other than `-m` to indicate the module to run.

New in version 5.0.

### [run] concurrency

(multi-string, default “thread”) The concurrency libraries in use by the product code. If your program uses multiprocessing, gevent, greenlet, or eventlet, you must name that library in this option, or coverage.py will produce very wrong results.

See Measuring sub-processes for details of multi-process measurement.

Before version 4.2, this option only accepted a single string.

New in version 4.0.

### [run] context

(string) The static context to record for this coverage run. See Measurement contexts for more information

New in version 5.0.

### [run] cover_pylib

(boolean, default False) Whether to measure the Python standard library.

### [run] data_file

(string, default “.coverage”) The name of the data file to use for storing or reporting coverage. This value can include a path to another directory.

### [run] disable_warnings

(multi-string) A list of warnings to disable. Warnings that can be disabled include a short string at the end, the name of the warning. See Warnings for specific warnings.

### [run] debug

(multi-string) A list of debug options. See the run –debug option for details.

### [run] debug_file

(string) A file name to write debug output to. See the run –debug option for details.

### [run] dynamic_context

(string) The name of a strategy for setting the dynamic context during execution. See Dynamic contexts for details.

### [run] include

(multi-string) A list of file name patterns, the files to include in measurement or reporting. Ignored if `source` is set. See Specifying source files for details.

### [run] omit

(multi-string) A list of file name patterns, the files to leave out of measurement or reporting. See Specifying source files for details.

### [run] parallel

(boolean, default False) Append the machine name, process id and random number to the data file name to simplify collecting data from many processes. See Combining data files: coverage combine for more information.

### [run] plugins

(multi-string) A list of plugin package names. See Plug-ins for more information.

### [run] relative_files

(boolean, default False) store relative file paths in the data file. This makes it easier to measure code in one (or multiple) environments, and then report in another. See Combining data files: coverage combine for details.

Note that setting `source` has to be done in the configuration file rather than the command line for this option to work, since the reporting commands need to know the source origin.

New in version 5.0.

### [run] sigterm

(boolean, default False) if true, register a SIGTERM signal handler to capture data when the process ends due to a SIGTERM signal. This includes `Process.terminate`, and other ways to terminate a process. This can help when collecting data in usual situations, but can also introduce problems (see issue 1310).

Only on Linux and Mac.

New in version 6.4: (in 6.3 this was always enabled)

### [run] source

(multi-string) A list of packages or directories, the source to measure during execution. If set, `include` is ignored. See Specifying source files for details.

### [run] source_pkgs

(multi-string) A list of packages, the source to measure during execution. Operates the same as `source`, but only names packages, for resolving ambiguities between packages and directories.

New in version 5.3.

### [run] timid

(boolean, default False) Use a simpler but slower trace method. This uses the PyTracer trace function core instead of CTracer, and is only needed in very unusual circumstances.

## [paths]

The entries in this section are lists of file paths that should be considered equivalent when combining data from different machines:

The names of the entries (“source” in this example) are ignored, you may choose any name that you like. The value is a list of strings. When combining data with the `combine` command, two file paths will be combined if they start with paths from the same list.

The first value must be an actual file path on the machine where the reporting will happen, so that source code can be found. The other values can be file patterns to match against the paths of collected data, or they can be absolute or relative file paths on the current machine.

In this example, data collected for “/jenkins/build/1234/src/module.py” will be combined with data for “c:\myproj\src\module.py”, and will be reported against the source file found at “src/module.py”.

If you specify more than one list of paths, they will be considered in order. A file path will only be remapped if the result exists. If a path matches a list, but the result doesn’t exist, the next list will be tried. The first list that has an existing result will be used.

Remapping will also be done during reporting, but only within the single data file being reported. Combining multiple files requires the `combine` command.

The `--debug=pathmap` option can be used to log details of the re-mapping of paths. See the –debug option.

See Re-mapping paths and File patterns for more information.

## [report]

Settings common to many kinds of reporting.

### [report] exclude_also

(multi-string) A list of regular expressions. This setting is similar to [report] exclude_lines: it specifies patterns for lines to exclude from reporting. This setting is preferred, because it will preserve the default exclude patterns instead of overwriting them.

New in version 7.2.0.

### [report] exclude_lines

(multi-string) A list of regular expressions. Any line of your source code containing a match for one of these regexes is excluded from being reported as missing. More details are in Excluding code from coverage.py. If you use this option, you are replacing all the exclude regexes, so you’ll need to also supply the “pragma: no cover” regex if you still want to use it. The [report] exclude_also setting can be used to specify patterns without overwriting the default set.

You can exclude lines introducing blocks, and the entire block is excluded. If you exclude a `def` line or decorator line, the entire function is excluded.

Be careful when writing this setting: the values are regular expressions that only have to match a portion of the line. For example, if you write `...`, you’ll exclude any line with three or more of any character. If you write `pass`, you’ll also exclude the line `my_pass="foo"`, and so on.

### [report] fail_under

(float) A target coverage percentage. If the total coverage measurement is under this value, then exit with a status code of 2. If you specify a non-integral value, you must also set `[report] precision` properly to make use of the decimal places. A setting of 100 will fail any value under 100, regardless of the number of decimal places of precision.

### [report] format

(string, default “text”) The format to use for the textual report. The default is “text” which produces a simple textual table. You can use “markdown” to produce a Markdown table, or “total” to output only the total coverage percentage.

New in version 7.0.

### [report] ignore_errors

(boolean, default False) Ignore source code that can’t be found, emitting a warning instead of an exception.

### [report] include

(multi-string) A list of file name patterns, the files to include in reporting. See Specifying source files for details.

### [report] include_namespace_packages

(boolean, default False) When searching for completely un-executed files, include directories without `__init__.py` files. These are implicit namespace packages, and are usually skipped.

New in version 7.0.

### [report] omit

(multi-string) A list of file name patterns, the files to leave out of reporting. See Specifying source files for details.

### [report] partial_branches

(multi-string) A list of regular expressions. Any line of code that matches one of these regexes is excused from being reported as a partial branch. More details are in Branch coverage measurement. If you use this option, you are replacing all the partial branch regexes so you’ll need to also supply the “pragma: no branch” regex if you still want to use it.

### [report] precision

(integer) The number of digits after the decimal point to display for reported coverage percentages. The default is 0, displaying for example “87%”. A value of 2 will display percentages like “87.32%”. This setting also affects the interpretation of the `fail_under` setting.

### [report] show_missing

(boolean, default False) When running a summary report, show missing lines. See Coverage summary: coverage report for more information.

### [report] skip_covered

(boolean, default False) Don’t report files that are 100% covered. This helps you focus on files that need attention.

### [report] skip_empty

(boolean, default False) Don’t report files that have no executable code (such as `__init__.py` files).

### [report] sort

(string, default “Name”) Sort the text report by the named column. Allowed values are “Name”, “Stmts”, “Miss”, “Branch”, “BrPart”, or “Cover”. Prefix with `-` for descending sort (for example, “-cover”).

## [html]

Settings particular to HTML reporting. The settings in the `[report]` section also apply to HTML output, where appropriate.

### [html] directory

(string, default “htmlcov”) Where to write the HTML report files.

### [html] extra_css

(string) The path to a file of CSS to apply to the HTML report. The file will be copied into the HTML output directory. Don’t name it “style.css”. This CSS is in addition to the CSS normally used, though you can overwrite as many of the rules as you like.

### [html] show_contexts

(boolean) Should the HTML report include an indication on each line of which contexts executed the line. See Dynamic contexts for details.

### [html] skip_covered

(boolean, defaulted from `[report] skip_covered`) Don’t include files in the report that are 100% covered files. See Coverage summary: coverage report for more information.

New in version 5.4.

### [html] skip_empty

(boolean, defaulted from `[report] skip_empty`) Don’t include empty files (those that have 0 statements) in the report. See Coverage summary: coverage report for more information.

New in version 5.4.

### [html] title

(string, default “Coverage report”) The title to use for the report. Note this is text, not HTML.

## [xml]

Settings particular to XML reporting. The settings in the `[report]` section also apply to XML output, where appropriate.

### [xml] output

(string, default “coverage.xml”) Where to write the XML report.

### [xml] package_depth

(integer, default 99) Controls which directories are identified as packages in the report. Directories deeper than this depth are not reported as packages. The default is that all directories are reported as packages.

## [json]

Settings particular to JSON reporting. The settings in the `[report]` section also apply to JSON output, where appropriate.

New in version 5.0.

### [json] output

(string, default “coverage.json”) Where to write the JSON file.

### [json] pretty_print

(boolean, default false) Controls if the JSON is outputted with white space formatted for human consumption (True) or for minimum file size (False).

### [json] show_contexts

(boolean, default false) Should the JSON report include an indication of which contexts executed each line. See Dynamic contexts for details.

## [lcov]

Settings particular to LCOV reporting (see LCOV reporting: coverage lcov).

New in version 6.3.

### [lcov] output

(string, default “coverage.lcov”) Where to write the LCOV file.