Code Quality

Python Code Quality

High-value Python code-quality anti-patterns to check during review or self-review. This skill is review-focused: it covers correctness and readability defects that a reviewer (or a linter) should flag, separate from testing mechanics (pytest) and whole-codebase health scoring (code-quality-scoring).

Source note: These anti-patterns are derived from CAST Highlight's Python code quality indicators (https://doc.casthighlight.com/), which reference PEP 8 and the Python data model as primary sources. Where a rule mirrors PEP 8, the PEP is the authoritative source. All examples are original.

When to Use This Skill

Use it when the task is "is this Python code clean and correct?" — for example:

• Reviewing a pull request and checking for the defects below.
• Self-reviewing before opening a PR.
• Configuring ruff/pylint/mypy rules so CI catches these automatically.
• Writing or updating a team's Python code-quality guidance.

Do not use it for testing mechanics (use the pytest skill) or for scoring a whole codebase's health and technical debt (use the code-quality-scoring skill).

Core Anti-Patterns (Summary)

Six highest-value Python anti-patterns. Each has a non-compliant/compliant example and a "how to test" note in the reference doc:

• Custom exceptions must derive from Exception — a class meant to be raised that inherits from object fails at runtime and breaks every except clause.
• Compare singletons with is, not == — use is/is not for None/True/False (PEP 8); use is only for singletons, never for value comparison.
• Avoid bare / overly broad except — catch the narrowest type you can handle; a generic except Exception only as a last-position fallback that logs or re-raises.
• Avoid wildcard imports (from x import *) — they hide dependencies, risk silent name collisions, and defeat static analysis.
• Replace magic numbers with named constants — promote non-obvious literals to documented, named constants.
• Remove unused local variables — a dead assignment misleads readers and can hide a bug where a value was meant to be used.

Best Practices

• Gate these in CI. Most are enforceable cheaply with ruff (F403/F405 wildcard, F841 unused locals, E711/E712 singleton comparison), pylint, and mypy. Put the lint step in CI so review effort focuses on judgment, not mechanics.
• Prefer specific exception handlers. Order handlers narrowest-first; reserve a generic except Exception for a logging/re-raising last resort.
• Name intent, not values. A constant's name documents why a threshold exists; a bare literal documents nothing.

Anti-Patterns (What to Avoid)

• Inheriting custom exceptions from object or directly from BaseException.
• == None, == True, or is "some literal".
• Bare except: or except BaseException: that swallows control-flow signals.
• from module import * outside a curated __init__.py with explicit __all__.
• Unexplained numeric literals in business logic.
• Assigned-but-never-read locals left behind by a stale refactor.

Navigation

• quality-antipatterns.md: Full non-compliant vs compliant examples and a "how to test" note for each of the six anti-patterns.

Related Skills

• pytest (toolchains/python/testing/pytest): testing mechanics — fixtures, parametrization, mocking. Several anti-patterns here (broad except, malformed exception classes) directly cause flaky tests.
• code-review-standards (universal/process/code-review-standards): the project-wide, severity-tagged review checklist that incorporates equivalents of these.
• code-quality-scoring (universal/quality/code-quality-scoring): whole-codebase health and technical-debt scoring, rather than individual findings.