chokkin

日本語

Find unused files, dependencies, and public symbols in Python projects.

uvx chokkin

That is the whole setup. chokkin reads your pyproject.toml, requirements files, lockfile, and tool configs, builds a reachability graph of the entire project from its entry points, and reports what nothing reaches. It is Knip for Python: one command, zero configuration, and a clear path to a CI gate when you want one.

• Zero config. Layout, entry points, dependency groups, and frameworks are detected automatically. Add [tool.chokkin] only when you need precision.
• Whole-project view. Not "is this import used in this file" but "can this file, package, or symbol be reached from anything that runs".
• Never runs your code. Analysis is fully static. Django settings, setup.py, and notebooks are parsed, not imported.
• Fast and self-contained. A single Rust binary shipped as a Python wheel for Linux, macOS, and Windows. No Rust toolchain, no project virtualenv required.
• Built for CI. Baselines, GitHub annotations, SARIF, fixed exit codes, and a bundled GitHub Action.

What you get

chokkin 0.7.6

Project: acme-api
Config : pyproject.toml
Mode   : app, production=false

Unused files  2
  src/acme/legacy.py       src/acme/legacy.py     file `src/acme/legacy.py` is not reachable from any entry root
  src/acme/old_handlers.py src/acme/old_handlers.py file `src/acme/old_handlers.py` is not reachable from any entry root

Unused dependencies  3
  boto3                    pyproject.toml         declared in project.dependencies[1], no reachable import, config, or binary usage found
  python-dotenv            pyproject.toml         declared in project.dependencies[3], no reachable import, config, or binary usage found
  rich                     pyproject.toml         declared in project.dependencies[2], no reachable import, config, or binary usage found

Missing dependencies  1
  src/acme/config.py:3 yaml src/acme/config.py:3   imported pyyaml in src/acme/config.py:3 (no lockfile — transitive check skipped) but not declared in matching dependency context

Unused exports  2
  acme.auth:OldTokenBackend src/acme/auth.py:5     public class `OldTokenBackend` in `acme.auth` is not referenced from outside the module
  acme.utils:legacy_slugify src/acme/utils.py:5    public function `legacy_slugify` in `acme.utils` is not referenced from outside the module

Summary: 8 issues

Every finding has a rule code, a location, and a reason. When you disagree with one, --explain and --trace show the evidence behind it.

Why not Ruff, Vulture, or deptry?

They are good tools that answer different questions:

chokkin starts from your entry points (console_scripts, manage.py, asgi.py, test suites, notebooks, CI commands, …) and asks what is reachable. A module that nothing imports, a package that nothing uses, a class that no other module references: those are the findings. Because it also reads framework and tool configuration, string references like Django's INSTALLED_APPS or a pre-commit hook running mypy count as usage instead of showing up as false positives.

Install

uvx chokkin          # run without installing
pipx run chokkin
pip install chokkin

Python 3.10+ is required to install the wheel. The analyzed project can target any Python version (target_version in the config).

chokkin does not need your project's virtualenv. If .venv exists it reads dist-info metadata from it; otherwise it works from manifests, lockfiles, and a bundled distribution-to-module map.

What it checks

Each finding also carries a confidence (certain, likely, maybe). By default maybe findings are hidden; --confidence and --strict change that.

Python makes every module top-level name importable, so unused_export is deliberately cautious: in library mode it is info-level, and names the defining module itself reads (a TypeVar, a type alias, a helper) are not reported.

What it understands

Manifests and lockfiles: pyproject.toml (PEP 621, Poetry, PDM, Hatch, [tool.uv] sources and constraints), PEP 735 dependency groups including include-group, PEP 723 inline script metadata, setup.cfg, static setup.py, requirements*.txt / *.in, and uv.lock, pylock.toml, poetry.lock, or pdm.lock for the transitive check.

Layouts: src and flat layouts, tests, scripts, docs, examples, Jupyter notebooks, build-backend package directories, and uv workspaces or auto-detected monorepo members, each analyzed with its own manifest.

Frameworks and tools: pytest, Django, FastAPI / uvicorn, Flask, Celery, Sphinx, MkDocs, Alembic, tox, nox, pre-commit, and GitHub Actions. Plugins add entry files, string module references, and binary usage that plain import analysis cannot see, and they switch on automatically when the framework is a declared dependency. The Django plugin, for example, treats INSTALLED_APPS, MIDDLEWARE, and ROOT_URLCONF strings as module references and migrations/** as framework-used; FastAPI and Flask route handlers count as externally used.

Dependency contexts: both dependencies and files are assigned a context (runtime / dev / test / docs / lint / type / optional extras). That is what powers CHK005: import pytest under tests/ with pytest in your dev group is fine, the same import under src/ is a misplaced dependency. TYPE_CHECKING-only imports are type context, and guarded imports (try: import orjson, find_spec(...), platform checks) stay informational.

Everyday usage

uvx chokkin                          # analyze the current directory
uvx chokkin path/to/project
uvx chokkin --reporter compact       # one line per finding
uvx chokkin --include CHK002,CHK003  # only dependency findings
uvx chokkin --exclude CHK006
uvx chokkin --production             # runtime context only
uvx chokkin --strict                 # stricter policies, show `maybe` findings

Investigate a finding before you trust it:

uvx chokkin --explain CHK002:boto3        # why is boto3 unused? which imports were seen?
uvx chokkin --trace src/acme/legacy.py    # how (or why not) is this file reached?

--trace prints the import chain from an entry root for reachable files, and the reason, entry roots, and incoming imports for unreachable ones. This is the intended path for reporting false positives.

Fix it when you agree:

uvx chokkin --fix --dry-run               # preview
uvx chokkin --fix                         # remove certain unused dependencies from manifests
uvx chokkin --fix --add-missing           # also declare certain missing dependencies
uvx chokkin --fix --allow-remove-files    # also delete certain unreachable files

--fix is conservative by design: it only touches certain findings, refuses to edit a manifest whose line numbers no longer match, preserves line endings, and reports anything it skipped on stderr.

Key flags:

• --production drops dev/test/docs/lint/type contexts and judges reachability from runtime code only. Dev-only files and dependencies disappear, and "unused in production" becomes exact.
• --strict makes direct imports of transitive dependencies an error, requires workspace members to declare their own dependencies, reports undeclared type/test/docs/dev imports as CHK003, errors on unused environment-marker dependencies, and shows maybe findings.
• --reporter default|compact|json|markdown|github|sarif picks the output. github emits workflow annotations; sarif writes a SARIF 2.1.0 subset for code scanning. Warnings about input chokkin could not read always go to stderr. json, markdown, github and sarif also carry each warning; default and compact end with a Warnings: N (see stderr) count. When one kind of warning repeats more than five times, stderr, markdown and github show the first five and count the rest; json and sarif keep every one.
• --no-exit-code returns 0 even with findings, for adoption periods and summaries.
• --no-cache disables the on-disk parse cache under .chokkin/. The cache is keyed on file stat and treats anything stale or corrupt as a miss.
• --no-auto-workspace stops nested pyproject.toml files from becoming workspace members or being skipped as separate projects.
• --init appends a starter [tool.chokkin] reflecting what auto-discovery found.

Exit codes are fixed for CI:

0: no reportable issues
1: issues found
2: CLI/config error
3: internal error

Adopting chokkin in an existing project

Large projects rarely start clean. Freeze what exists today in a baseline so CI fails only on new findings:

uvx chokkin --baseline chokkin-baseline.json --update-baseline
git add chokkin-baseline.json

Then gate pull requests with the bundled GitHub Action. It emits annotations, writes SARIF for code scanning, and fails only for findings not in the baseline:

name: chokkin

on:
  pull_request:

permissions:
  contents: read
  security-events: write

jobs:
  chokkin:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@3d3c42e5aac5ba805825da76410c181273ba90b1 # v7.0.1
      - uses: watany-dev/chokkin@f6d097a5595fa4c1d6a7d3b67154d9b30e5c1d46 # v0.7.3
        with:
          baseline: chokkin-baseline.json
          sarif-file: chokkin.sarif
      - uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@2892aa5e19bbd11bc0cff5427e3b750a04d9e3c2 # v4.38.2
        if: always()
        with:
          sarif_file: chokkin.sarif

Pin the action to a full commit SHA with the tag as a comment, as above: a tag can be moved, a SHA cannot, and Dependabot still bumps both.

Without the action, pin the version with uvx:

      - uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@c18668ad3cf93ea998bef934396af7bb5c839dc7 # v10.2.0
      - run: uvx chokkin@0.7.6 --baseline chokkin-baseline.json --reporter github

Baseline files and --reporter json output carry schema_version: "1" and follow the published JSON Schemas under docs/schema/.

Suppressing issues

Inline and file-level comments:

from legacy import old_api  # chokkin: ignore[CHK003]

# chokkin: file-ignore[CHK006]   (at the top of a file)

Config ignores, keyed by rule code (globs over distribution names, paths, or path:symbol):

[tool.chokkin.ignore]
CHK001 = ["src/acme/generated/**/*.py"]
CHK002 = ["boto3", "google-cloud-*"]
CHK006 = ["src/acme/public_api.py:*"]

Per-rule severity, including turning a rule off:

[tool.chokkin.severity]
CHK001 = "off"
CHK006 = "info"

Configuration

Zero config is the default. When you need precision, add [tool.chokkin] to pyproject.toml (a standalone chokkin.toml or .chokkin.toml also works). chokkin --init writes a starter section for you. Everything below is optional:

[tool.chokkin]
entry = [
  "src/acme/__main__.py",
  "src/acme/asgi.py:application",
  "manage.py",
]
project = [
  "src/**/*.py",
  "tests/**/*.py",
  "scripts/**/*.py",
]
mode = "auto"             # auto | app | library
production = false
target_version = "py311"  # Python version of the analyzed project
respect_gitignore = true
confidence = "likely"     # certain | likely | maybe
exclude = [
  ".venv/**",
  "build/**",
  "dist/**",
  "**/__pycache__/**",
]
vendored = [             # analyzed and traced, but never reported
  "**/_vendor/**",
  "**/third_party/**",
]

[tool.chokkin.dependencies]
dev_groups = ["dev", "test", "tests", "lint", "docs"]
runtime_groups = ["server", "worker"]
type_groups = ["types", "typing", "mypy"]

# distribution name -> import name(s), for cases the bundled map doesn't cover
[tool.chokkin.package_module_map]
"PyYAML" = ["yaml"]
"Pillow" = ["PIL"]
"protobuf" = ["google.protobuf"]  # dotted names pick one distribution under a namespace package

# CLI name -> distribution name, used by CHK008/CHK002 binary-usage checks
[tool.chokkin.binary_map]
"sphinx-build" = "Sphinx"

[tool.chokkin.plugins]
pytest = true
django = true
fastapi = true

[tool.chokkin.severity]
CHK001 = "off"
CHK006 = "info"

The root .chokkin/ directory holds analyzer data and is always excluded.

Modes

mode = "auto" picks one of:

• app when there is a clear entry (console_scripts, manage.py, asgi.py, wsgi.py, app.py). Unused files are reported aggressively.
• library when there is a [project] name with a package and no clear entry. Public modules may be imported by users you cannot see, so unused files and exports are reported at low confidence or as info. Declare entry explicitly for serious unused-file detection in a library.
• workspace when there are multiple pyproject.toml files or tool.uv.workspace.members. Each member is analyzed separately against the shared lockfile, with per-member settings under [tool.chokkin.workspaces.<name>]. Repositories without a workspace declaration get nested pyproject.toml files with a [project] name (up to four directories deep) as members automatically; nested projects that are not members, such as an example app with its own [project], are left out with a warning.

Known limits

Python is dynamic, and chokkin is static. Things it cannot see:

• Modules loaded by name from runtime data (a plugin registry read from a database, importlib.import_module(f"{pkg}.{name}") with a non-literal name). Declare these as entry or ignore the rule for that path.
• Code reached only through a framework or tool chokkin has no plugin for. --trace shows exactly why a file was judged unreachable, which is usually enough to pick the right entry or ignore.
• Users of a library's public API. That is why library mode downgrades CHK001 / CHK006 rather than erroring.

If a finding looks wrong and --explain / --trace do not settle it, please open an issue with their output.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. The full design specification (analysis engine, import resolution strategy, roadmap) is in docs/dev/spec.ja.md (Japanese), and design decisions are recorded under docs/adr/.

License

MIT