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# Development

## Key points

If you’re already experienced with submitting GitHub PRs to open-source Python projects, the following are the key points you need to know about this project. (If you’re not, you should carefully read all the documentation after this section. This section contains only highlights; it’s not a substitute for reading this entire file.)

- Check the style guide below. Note that `tox -e fix` will not catch the following:

  - Lines wrapped at less than 120 characters. Lines should be wrapped at 120 characters, not the PEP-8 standard of 79.

  - Variable names should be at least two characters long.

- Documentation is in RST format; beware the differences from GitHub Markdown. The tox `docs` and `fix` targets will catch only some RST errors; documentation changes must be checked visually (see below).

- All PRs that make changes visible to an end user require a changelog entry. This should reference an issue if it closes that issue, otherwise reference the PR. Create one or more (if there’s more than one issue) `docs/changelog/####.{breaking,deprecation,feature,bugfix,doc,packaging,contrib,misc}.rst` per the changelog entry section below.

- GitHub Actions will do a full set of tests and checks when the PR is submitted. For local testing you’ll need to install your own “top-level” tox (using pipx or similar is fine) and use the following targets (tox environments):

  - `tox -e py [-- pytest-arg ...]` to test code changes. This will skip tests for which you are missing dependencies, but those tests will still be run by GitHub Actions.

  - `tox -e type` to typecheck changes. (All new code should have complete type annotations.)

  - `tox -e docs` to build documentation changes and update the changelog, followed by viewing (with a browser) the generated HTML files under `.tox/docs_out/html/`. The required changelog entry can be viewed at the “Release History” link at the left.

  - `tox -e fix` to lint code, documentation and any other changes to the repo. This will also fix the code and write out the changed files; you can update your commit with git commit –amend.

## Getting started

`tox` is a volunteer maintained open source project and we welcome contributions of all forms. The sections below will help you get started with development, testing, and documentation. We’re pleased that you are interested in working on tox. This document is meant to get you setup to work on tox and to act as a guide and reference to the development setup. If you face any issues during this process, please open an issue about it on the issue tracker.

### Setup

tox is a command line application written in Python. To work on it, you’ll need:

- Source code: available on GitHub. You can use `git` to clone the repository:

      git clone https://github.com/tox-dev/tox
      cd tox

- Python interpreter: We recommend using `CPython`. You can use this guide to set it up.

- tox: to automatically get the projects development dependencies and run the test suite. We recommend installing it using pipx.

### Running from source tree

The easiest way to do this is to generate the development tox environment, and then invoke tox from under the `.tox/dev` folder

    tox -e dev
    .tox/dev/bin/tox  # on Linux
    .tox/dev/Scripts/tox  # on Windows

### Running tests

tox’s tests are written using the pytest test framework. tox is used to automate the setup and execution of tox’s tests.

To run tests locally execute:

    tox -e py

This will run the test suite for the same Python version as under which `tox` is installed. Alternatively you can specify a specific version of Python by using the `pyNN` format, such as: `py38`, `pypy3`, etc.

`tox` has been configured to forward any additional arguments it is given to `pytest`. This enables the use of pytest’s rich CLI. As an example, you can select tests using the various ways that pytest provides:

    # Using markers
    tox -e py -- -m "not slow"
    # Using keywords
    tox -e py -- -k "test_extra"

Some tests require additional dependencies to be run, such is the various shell activators (`bash`, `fish`, `powershell`, etc). The tests will be skipped automatically if the dependencies are not present. Please note however that in CI all tests are run; so even if all tests succeed locally for you, they may still fail in the CI.

### Running linters

tox uses pre-commit for managing linting of the codebase. `pre-commit` performs various checks on all files in tox and uses tools that help following a consistent code style within the codebase. To use linters locally, run:

    tox -e fix

Note

Avoid using `# noqa` comments to suppress linter warnings - wherever possible, warnings should be fixed instead. `# noqa` comments are reserved for rare cases where the recommended style causes severe readability problems or sidestep bugs within the linters.

### Code style guide

- First and foremost, the linters configured for the project must pass; this generally means following PEP-8 rules, as codified by `ruff` (which replaces the previously used `flake8`, `black`, `isort`, and `pyupgrade`).

- The supported Python versions (and the code syntax to use) are listed in the `pyproject.toml` file in the `project/requires-python` entry.

- All code (tests too) must be type annotated as much as required by `mypy`.

- We use a line length of 120.

- Exception messages should only be capitalized (and ended with a period/exclamation mark) if they are multi-sentenced, which should be avoided. Otherwise, use statements that start with lowercase.

- All function (including test) names must follow PEP-8, so they must be fully snake cased. All classes are upper camel-cased.

- Prefer f-strings instead of the `str.format` method.

- Tests should contain as little information as possible but do use descriptive variable names within it.

### Building documentation

tox’s documentation is built using Sphinx. The documentation is written in reStructuredText. To build it locally, run:

    tox -e docs

The built documentation can be found in the `.tox/docs_out/html` folder and may be viewed by opening `index.html` within that folder.

## Contributing

### Submitting pull requests

Submit pull requests (PRs) against the `main` branch, providing a good description of what you’re doing and why. You must have legal permission to distribute any code you contribute to tox and it must be available under the MIT License. Provide tests that cover your changes and run the tests locally first. tox supports multiple Python versions and operating systems. Any pull request must consider and work on all these platforms.

Pull requests should be small to facilitate review. Keep them self-contained, and limited in scope. Studies have shown that review quality falls off as patch size grows. In particular, pull requests must not be treated as “feature branches”, with ongoing development work happening within the PR. Instead, the feature should be broken up into smaller, independent parts which can be reviewed and merged individually.

Additionally, avoid including “cosmetic” changes to code that is unrelated to your change, as these make reviewing the PR more difficult. Examples include re-flowing text in comments or documentation, or addition or removal of blank lines or whitespace within lines. Such changes can be made separately, as a “formatting cleanup” PR, if needed.

### Automated testing

All pull requests and merges to the `main` branch are tested using GitHub Actions (configured by `check.yaml` file inside the `.github/workflows` directory). You can find the status and the results to the CI runs for your PR on GitHub’s Web UI for the pull request. You can also find links to the CI services’ pages for the specific builds in the form of “Details” links, in case the CI run fails and you wish to view the output.

To trigger CI to run again for a pull request, you can close and open the pull request or submit another change to the pull request. If needed, project maintainers can manually trigger a restart of a job/build.

### Changelog entries

The `changelog.rst` file is managed using towncrier and all changes must be accompanied by a changelog entry. To add an entry to the changelog, first you need to have created an issue describing the change you want to make. A pull request itself may function as such, but it is preferred to have a dedicated issue (for example, in case the PR ends up rejected due to code quality reasons).

There is no need to create an issue for trivial changes, e.g. for typo fixes.

Once you have an issue or pull request, you take the number and you create a file inside of the `docs/changelog` directory named after that issue number with an extension of:

- `breaking.rst` - backward incompatible changes,

- `deprecation.rst` - deprecations (removal in next major release),

- `feature.rst` - new features,

- `bugfix.rst` - bug fixes,

- `doc.rst` - documentation improvements,

- `packaging.rst` - packaging updates and notes for downstreams,

- `contrib.rst` - contributor-facing changes,

- `misc.rst` - miscellaneous internal changes.

Thus if your issue or PR number is `1234` and this change is fixing a bug, then you would create a file `docs/changelog/1234.bugfix.rst`. PRs can span multiple categories by creating multiple files (for instance, if you added a feature and deprecated/removed the old feature at the same time, you would create `docs/changelog/1234.bugfix.rst` and `docs/changelog/1234.deprecation.rst`). Likewise if a PR touches multiple issues/PRs you may create a file for each of them with the same contents and towncrier will deduplicate them.

#### Contents of a changelog entry

The content of this file is reStructuredText formatted text that will be used as the content of the changelog entry. You do not need to reference the issue or PR numbers here as towncrier will automatically add a reference to all of the affected issues when rendering the changelog. You may append `- by :user:USERNAME`, with a GitHub username in backticks, if you wish.

In order to maintain a consistent style in the `changelog.rst` file, it is preferred to keep the entries to the point, in sentence case, shorter than 120 characters and in an imperative tone – an entry should complete the sentence `This change will …`. In rare cases, where one line is not enough, use a summary line in an imperative tone followed by a blank line separating it from a description of the feature/change in one or more paragraphs, each wrapped at 120 characters. Remember that a changelog entry is meant for end users and should only contain details relevant to an end user.

An example of `docs/changelog/####.bugfix.rst` contents is:

    Instead of raising ``UnicodeDecodeError`` when command output includes non-utf-8 bytes, ``tox`` will now use
    ``surrogateescape`` error handling to convert the unrecognized bytes to escape sequences according to :pep:`383`
    - by :user:`masenf`

### Becoming a maintainer

If you want to become an official maintainer, start by helping out. As a first step, we welcome you to triage issues on tox’s issue tracker. tox maintainers provide triage abilities to contributors once they have been around for some time and contributed positively to the project. This is optional and highly recommended for becoming a tox maintainer. Later, when you think you’re ready, get in touch with one of the maintainers and they will initiate a vote among the existing maintainers.

Note

Upon becoming a maintainer, a person should be given access to various tox-related tooling across multiple platforms. These are noted here for future reference by the maintainers:

- GitHub Push Access (provides also CI administration capabilities)

- PyPI Publishing Access

- ReadTheDocs Administration capabilities (the root domain tox.wiki is currently owned and maintained by the primary maintainer and author `Bernat Gabor`; bought via Porkbun – reach out to him directly for any changes).

### Creating a new release

tox supports two methods for preparing releases:

#### Method 1: Local release (requires git access)

    tox r -e release -- <version>

Example:

    tox r -e release -- 4.27.0

This will:

1. Create a `release-<version>` branch from upstream/main.

2. Generate changelog using towncrier.

3. Commit changes with message “release <version>”.

4. Tag the commit with the version number.

5. Force-push to main and push the tag.

6. Clean up local branches.

Requirements:

- Write access to tox-dev/tox repository.

- Configured git remote pointing to tox-dev/tox (typically named `upstream`).

      git remote add upstream git@github.com:tox-dev/tox.git

- Local dependencies installed via tox.

#### Method 2: GitHub Actions workflow dispatch

Navigate to Actions > Prepare Release and:

1. Click “Run workflow”.

2. Select the branch (usually `main`).

3. Choose the version bump type:

   - `auto` (default) - Automatically bump minor if feature changelogs exist, otherwise bump patch.

   - `major` - Bump major version (e.g., 4.0.0 → 5.0.0).

   - `minor` - Bump minor version (e.g., 4.27.0 → 4.28.0).

   - `patch` - Bump patch version (e.g., 4.27.0 → 4.27.1).

4. Click “Run workflow”.

The workflow executes the same `tasks/release.py` script in a clean CI environment.

Requirements:

- Write access to tox-dev/tox repository (workflow permissions).

- For repositories with branch protection on `main`, a `RELEASE_PAT` secret must be configured in the `release-auth` environment with a fine-grained Personal Access Token that has permissions to bypass branch protection rules.

- Maintainer approval is required to trigger the workflow (configured via environment protection rules).

#### After release preparation

Both methods push a tag to the repository. The tag push automatically triggers the `release.yaml` workflow which:

1. Builds Python packages (sdist + wheel).

2. Publishes to PyPI via trusted publishing.

Note

- Both methods force-push to main (ensure no concurrent work).

- The release process is atomic and should not be interrupted.

- Failed releases can be retried with the same version number.

#### Current maintainers

- Bernát Gábor

- Jürgen Gmach

- Rahul Devikar

#### Previous maintainers

- Anthony Sottile

- Masen Furer

- Oliver Bestwalter