cylint 0.1.3

PySpark anti-pattern linter — catch the code that costs you money

cylint

A PySpark linter that catches the anti-patterns costing you real money.

Static analysis for PySpark code. No Spark runtime needed. Zero dependencies. Runs anywhere Python runs.

Install

pip install cylint

Usage

# Lint files or directories
cy lint src/pipelines/

# JSON output for CI
cy lint --format json src/

# Only warnings and critical
cy lint --min-severity warning .

Example output:

pipeline.py:47:8: CY003 [critical] .withColumn() inside a loop creates O(n²) plan complexity.
  Use .select([...]) with all column expressions instead.

pipeline.py:82:4: CY001 [warning] .collect() called without filtering.
  Consider .limit(N).collect(), .take(N), or using .show() for inspection.

pipeline.py:103:4: CY005 [warning] .cache() with single downstream use.
  Cache is only beneficial when the same DataFrame is used in multiple actions.

Found 3 issues (1 critical, 2 warnings) in 1 file.

Rules

Rule	Severity	What it catches
CY001	warning	.collect() without .filter() or .limit() — the #1 OOM cause
CY002	warning	UDF where a builtin exists (e.g. udf(lambda x: x.lower()) → F.lower())
CY003	critical	.withColumn() in a loop — creates O(n²) Catalyst plans
CY004	info	SELECT * in spark.sql() strings — prevents column pruning
CY005	warning	.cache() / .persist() with ≤1 downstream use — wastes memory
CY006	warning	.toPandas() on unfiltered DataFrame — collects everything to driver
CY007	critical	.crossJoin() or .join() without condition — cartesian product
CY008	info	.repartition() before .write() — unnecessary shuffle
CY009	critical	UDF in .filter()/.where() — blocks predicate pushdown
CY010	warning	.join() without explicit how= — ambiguous join type
CY011	warning	.withColumnRenamed()/.drop() in a loop — O(n²) plan nodes
CY012	warning	.show()/.display()/.printSchema() left in production code
CY013	warning	.coalesce(1) before .write() — single-executor bottleneck
CY014	critical	Multiple actions without .cache() — recomputes full lineage each time
CY015	critical	Non-equi .join() condition — implicit cartesian product
CY016	info	Invalid escape sequence in string literal — use raw strings for regex

List all rules:

cy rules

How it works

cylint uses Python's ast module to parse your source files and track DataFrame variables through assignment chains. It knows that anything coming from spark.read.*, spark.sql(), or spark.table() is a DataFrame, and follows method chains from there.

No type stubs. No Spark installation. No imports resolved. Just fast, heuristic analysis that catches the patterns that matter.

Configuration

Out of the box, every rule runs at its default severity with no exclusions. No config file needed.

If a rule doesn't apply to your codebase, or you want to skip certain directories, drop a .cylint.yml in your project root or add a [tool.cylint] section to your existing pyproject.toml. The linter picks it up automatically.

.cylint.yml

# Only fail on warnings and above (ignore info-level findings)
min-severity: warning

rules:
  CY004: off        # we use SELECT * intentionally in dynamic queries
  CY008: warning    # promote repartition-before-write to warning

exclude:
  - tests/
  - vendor/
  - notebooks/scratch/

pyproject.toml

[tool.cylint]
min-severity = "warning"
exclude = ["tests/", "notebooks/scratch/"]

[tool.cylint.rules]
CY004 = "off"
CY008 = "warning"

CI Integration

GitHub Actions

name: PySpark Lint
on: pull_request

jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.12"
      - run: pip install cylint
      - run: cy lint --format github src/

The --format github flag outputs findings as workflow annotations — they appear inline on the PR diff.

pre-commit

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/clusteryield/cylint
    hooks:
      - id: spark-lint
        args: [--min-severity, warning]

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	No findings
1	Warnings or info findings
2	Critical findings

Why these rules?

Every rule targets a pattern that either causes OOM crashes, triggers unnecessary shuffles, or prevents Spark's Catalyst optimizer from doing its job. These aren't style opinions — they're the patterns you find in postmortems after a 3am page about a failed pipeline or a $40K surprise on your Databricks bill.

If you've read a "PySpark anti-patterns to avoid" blog post, you've seen these patterns described. This tool catches them automatically, before the code hits production.

License

Apache 2.0