python-conventions

A set of conventions for writing and reviewing modern Python 3.11 or newer code. It covers type hints, project structure, asynchronous code, logging, testing, formatting, and static checks.

In plain words
What is it for?
Designing Python modules, choosing standard-library patterns, writing async code, adding types and tests, and checking code with tools such as Ruff, mypy, and pytest.
Why use it?
It gives a project consistent coding and review rules, reducing avoidable errors and disagreements about style. It also identifies unsafe or discouraged patterns such as bare exception handling and unrestricted evaluation.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/hermeticormus/python-conventions-skills/python-conventions
Any agent
npx skills add HermeticOrmus/python-conventions-skills --skill python-conventions
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/HermeticOrmus/python-conventions-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 283 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00042 $0.00283
Opus 5 $0.00021 $0.00142
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00057
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00028

Measured yesterday against content hash 3bcc33f17120, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

python-conventions scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Runs shell commandslowCapability

Expected in a hook, worth knowing in a rule or an instructions file.

- subprocess.run over os.system
skills/python-conventions/SKILL.md · 55 lines

What it actually says

Python conventions

Modern Python (3.11+) defaults.

Types

  • Type hints required everywhere
  • from __future__ import annotations at top
  • Pydantic v2 for I/O, TypedDict for internal, Literal for string enums

Stdlib

  • pathlib.Path over os.path
  • dataclasses over manual init
  • subprocess.run over os.system
  • f-strings except logging
  • match for tagged unions

Async

  • async def end-to-end, httpx not requests
  • TaskGroup for structured concurrency
  • Never time.sleep in async

Logging

  • structlog or stdlib + structured extras
  • No print() in libraries
  • Lazy formatting

Tooling

  • ruff for lint + format
  • mypy --strict
  • pytest fixtures
  • uv over pip

Banned

  • Bare except
  • Mutable defaults
  • from foo import *
  • eval/exec on user input
  • Stringly-typed returns

Full content + 15 worked examples at https://github.com/HermeticOrmus/python-conventions-skills.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 55 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A 3bcc33f17120

Subscribe to this mod's changes

python-conventions is a skill published in the GitHub repository HermeticOrmus/python-conventions-skills (2 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 283 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (runs shell commands). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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