gerenuk

Impact-based pytest selection for Python, powered by ty-find.

A diff comes in; gerenuk run runs exactly the tests that diff impacts, and nothing else:

$ gerenuk run -- -q
gerenuk: 5 node id(s) from 1 origin(s) in 152 ms — details: gerenuk impacted-tests
.........                                                                [100%]
9 passed in 0.02s

It gets there by asking ty's type checker, through tyf, which symbols the working tree changed and which tests can reach them — so the selection follows Python's actual name resolution, not a name match. Anything gerenuk cannot see through becomes "run the whole suite" rather than a confident short list.

📖 Documentation · 🤖 llms.txt

Install

uv add --dev "gerenuk[ty]"

ty-find comes with gerenuk — tyf is what it drives. The [ty] extra adds ty itself; without it tyf falls back to uvx ty, which works whenever uv is around but fetches the checker on first use.

Verify the setup:

gerenuk doctor

Usage

gerenuk changed-symbols                # what the working tree changed
gerenuk impacted-tests                 # and which tests that reaches
gerenuk run -- -q                      # and run exactly those, under pytest
gerenuk run --dry-run                  # the decision and the argv, no pytest
gerenuk audit pkg/module.py            # separately: what nothing references
gerenuk guide                          # agent-facing instructions for where you stand

Not sure where to start? uvx gerenuk guide prints the setup instructions without installing anything; once a madoqua step names gerenuk, the same command prints how to read a report. Every page is under 60 lines.

The three selection stages are one pipeline, and run computes the whole thing in-process — the first two are there to be read when a selection surprises you.

changed-symbols

Maps the working tree's diff to the Python symbols it changed — the first stage of impact-based test selection. It needs only git; no tyf, no ty, no Python environment.

$ gerenuk changed-symbols
base main (merge-base 5ddda1f)

changed symbols (2)
  modified  method    mypkg.pipelines.enrich:Enricher.run  src/mypkg/pipelines/enrich.py
  added     function  mypkg.utils:parse_date               src/mypkg/utils.py

module-level changes (1)
  mypkg.pipelines.enrich  src/mypkg/pipelines/enrich.py

--base defaults to the first of origin/main, main, master that exists; the diff runs from merge-base(HEAD, base) to the working tree, staged and unstaged alike. --format json emits the same data for scripting. Registry decorators can be filtered out via [tool.gerenuk] ignore-decorators in pyproject.toml. See the documentation.

impacted-tests

Walks the reference graph from those changed symbols out to the tests that reach them — the selection, minus the pytest invocation, which is run's job.

$ gerenuk impacted-tests
base main (merge-base 5ddda1f)
verdict selected

impacted tests (2)
  tests/test_enrich.py::test_run_enriches
    ← mypkg.pipelines.enrich:Enricher.run
  tests/test_api.py::test_endpoint_returns_lines
    ← mypkg.api:enrich_endpoint ← mypkg.pipelines.enrich:Enricher.run

41 symbol(s) visited, 5 tyf call(s), 640 ms

The ← chain is the point: when a selection looks wrong, it names the edge to blame, and tyf refs <symbol> confirms it by hand.

Every run emits a verdict. selected means the list is the answer; run_all means run the whole suite, with a machine-readable reason — a non-Python file changed, a file did not parse, tyf was unavailable or failed, or a budget tripped. Both exit 0. Under-selecting silently is the one outcome that would make the tool worse than not having it, so anything gerenuk cannot see through becomes "run everything" rather than a short list.

See the documentation.

run

Turns that selection into a pytest invocation and runs it. gerenuk says one line for itself and then becomes pytest, so Ctrl-C, colours and the exit code are pytest's own.

$ gerenuk run -- -q
gerenuk: 5 node id(s) from 1 origin(s) in 152 ms — details: gerenuk impacted-tests
.........                                                                [100%]
9 passed in 0.02s

gerenuk owns the invocation rather than printing node ids for a shell to interpolate, because a selection has three answers and an argument list has only two: an empty pytest argv is "run everything". So pytest $(gerenuk …) would run the entire suite in precisely the best case — the diff that impacts no tests. Here that case spawns nothing and exits 0.

run is also where pytest's own rules get applied. A recorded symbol is often a helper or a fixture rather than a test, so each name is checked against pytest's collection conventions and trimmed — or widened to the whole file — until it is one pytest will accept. And because pytest injects fixtures by name, which no type checker can follow, conftest.py is parsed for its fixtures and their consumers; the expansion keeps its audit trail:

tests/test_service.py::test_summary
  ← tests.conftest:shelter ← sample_pkg.service:describe

--dry-run prints the decision and the exact argv without spawning anything. pytest-command = ["uv", "run", "pytest"] under [tool.gerenuk] names the runner. See the documentation.

Dead code: audit

The same reference graph answers the opposite question — what does nothing reach? — so gerenuk audit asks it for every symbol in a file:

$ gerenuk audit sample_pkg/service.py
warn  sample_pkg/service.py:43  func `legacy_export` has no references
note  sample_pkg/service.py:34  method `ShelterService.seniors` is referenced only from tests (1)

1 file(s), 7 symbol(s) checked — 1 warn, 1 note

Only callable symbols are audited; _private and dunder names are skipped. --format json emits the findings for scripting.

It is a verifier, not a sweep

vulture is the cheap repo-wide sweep for dead code: one pass over a whole project, no type checker involved. It works on names, so it cannot tell two same-named symbols apart, it flags dynamic and framework code that is very much alive, and it cannot tell you who references a symbol.

gerenuk audit asks ty's type checker instead, through tyf. References resolve the way Python resolves them — docstrings, comments and same-named symbols in other modules do not count — and each one comes back as a file and a line you can open. That costs one tyf refs call per file and needs tyf installed, which is why it takes the files you name rather than a whole repository. It is shaped for confirming a specific suspicion.

The two fit together in that order:

vulture src/                    # sweep: what might be dead
gerenuk audit src/suspect.py    # confirm the file against resolved references
tyf refs one_symbol             # or confirm a single name
# then delete

Exit codes carry the verdict: 0 nothing flagged, 1 findings reported, 2 the run could not complete. The split between 1 and 2 is what makes it usable in CI — a failing check and a broken setup are different problems.

Referenced only from tests

The note is the finding a name-based scanner cannot produce at all: every reference to the symbol exists, and every one of them is in a test file. Production stopped calling it and its own tests are what keep it alive — usually the residue of an unfinished refactor, and exactly the code that survives a dead-code sweep forever. That finding is why audit earns a place next to a repo-wide scanner rather than deferring to one entirely.

What it cannot see

gerenuk reports static references, plus the three edges a type checker cannot draw and gerenuk models explicitly: conftest.py fixtures, registering decorators, and renaming imports (from x import y as z, which tyf answers for under y while the code says z). Everything else dynamic — registries populated at runtime, getattr dispatch, __all__ star re-exports — stays invisible.

So findings are leads, not a delete list. Confirm with tyf refs <symbol> before deleting anything.

Registered functions

Nothing references a @app.command() or a @router.get() — the framework holds the only handle. So gerenuk follows the decorator to its registrar (app, router) and treats what reaches the registrar as reaching the function. A decorator that only wraps (@property, @functools.wraps) is left alone, and a registrar that cannot be resolved gives run_all with reason: "decorator_dispatch" rather than a confident empty answer. See ADR 0012.

Usage with Claude Code

Add this to your project's CLAUDE.md. Two lines is the whole of it — the exit codes, the run_all verdict and the caveat above are in gerenuk --help and on the documentation site, which is where an agent that needs them should go:

### `gerenuk` — test selection and dead code

- `gerenuk run -- -q` runs only the tests the working tree's diff impacts
  (`--dry-run` to inspect; `gerenuk impacted-tests` explains why).
- `gerenuk audit <file>` confirms a symbol vulture flagged is really unused;
  its `only tests reach it` findings are ones vulture cannot produce.

Development

make review        # fmt + clippy + rust tests + fixture pytest + audit + deny
make review-quick  # skip the network checks
make test-impact   # impacted-tests against the fixture, with a real tyf
make test-run      # the whole pipeline, with a real tyf and a real pytest
make docs          # build the mdBook site and llms.txt into docs/book/html

The test suite is hermetic: tests/common/mod.rs stubs tyf and pytest with shell scripts and points GERENUK_TYF and GERENUK_PYTEST at them, so none of tyf, ty or pytest is needed to run cargo test. See docs/dev/ARCHITECTURE.md for the shape and docs/adr/ for why it is that shape.

License

MIT