Empty Python Project Template

This template provides a basic template for a Python project, with out-of-the-box support for py.test, coverage, Sphinx, tox, and the standard Python flow for building and distributing projects.

An .editorconfig_ file is provided to ensure standard settings when working with multiple editors.

A travis.yml file is provided for easy integration with the travis CI system, which is free for open-source projects.

The default license included in the LICENSE file is the MIT license.

Features

• Sphinx automatically parses the package name and version number, so there is no need to edit conf.py for most projects
• CHANGELOG.rst and README.rst are automatically included as the homepage of the Sphinx-generated documentation
• setup.py automatically parses requirements.txt for requirements and the package version, so there is no need to update in multiple places
• tox is configured by default to build the project documentation using Sphinx and autodoc, so all of your docstrings will be automatically documented

Getting Started

To get up and running, first check out the repo locally and copy it into your project root:

mkdir my_project
git clone https://github.com/mplanchard/python_skeleton
cp -r python_skeleton/* my_project/
cp python_skeleton/.editorconfig my_project/
cp python_skeleton/.gitignore my_project/
cd my_project

Then setup and activate a virtual environment for the project. A create_venv.sh script is provided for convenience. Note that the provided script assumes you want to use "python3" as an interpreter. If you don't, adjust the script to use your desired Python prior to running the following commands:

./create_venv.sh
source venv/bin/activate

Then adjust the following as needed:

• Rename the package_name directory to your desired package name
• Fill in the constants in setup.py, ensuring that NAME matches the directory name of your package
• Assign your package name to the PACKAGE_NAME environment variables in tox.ini
• If you don't want to support Python 2 (a more and more reasonable decision), remove py27 from the environments list in tox.ini, and then in setup.cfg, comment out universal=1 and uncomment python-tag=py3.
• If you're using type-hints and you intend to support anything less than Python 3.5, uncomment the indicated line in requirements.txt

You should now be able to:

• Install your package in development mode:

  pip install -e .

• Run tests

  py.test

• Run tests against all configured Python interpreters and build documentation

  tox

• Build your project

  python setup.py bdist_wheel

Contributing

I use this repo as a skeleton for the majority of my projects, and you are welcome to do the same. If you'd like to fix something, improve the documentation, or add a new feature, please feel free to open a PR. If there's a feature you'd like to see added and you're unsure of how to contribute, raise an Issue.