pydantic-settings-export 1.1.1

Export your Pydantic settings to documentation with ease!

pydantic-settings-export

Export your Pydantic settings to documentation with ease!

This package seamlessly integrates with pydantic and pydantic-settings to automatically generate documentation from your settings models. Create Markdown docs, .env.example files, and more with minimal configuration.

✨ Key Features

• 📝 Documentation Generation

  • Markdown with tables and descriptions
  • Environment files (.env.example)
  • TOML configuration files with comments
  • Support for region injection in existing files
  • Customizable output formats

• 🔄 Smart Configuration Handling

  • Automatic type detection
  • Environment variables validation
  • Default values preservation
  • Optional/required fields distinction

• 🛠 Flexible Integration

  • Command-line interface
  • pre-commit hook support
  • GitHub Actions compatibility
  • Python API for custom solutions

• 🔌 Additional Features

  • Email validation support (optional)
  • Markdown region injection (optional)
  • Multiple output paths for each generator
  • Configurable through pyproject.toml

📋 Requirements

• Python 3.10 or higher
• pydantic >= 2.7
• pydantic-settings >= 2.3

Optional dependencies (aka extras):

• email -- for email validation support (email-validator >= 2.2.0).
  • Required for pydantic.EmailStr type.
• regions -- for Markdown region insertion support (text-region-parser >= 0.1.1).
  • Required for Markdown generator with region option.
• toml -- for TOML configuration file generation (tomlkit >= 0.12.0).
  • Required for TOML generator.

Install with optional dependencies:

# Install with all optional dependencies
pip install "pydantic-settings-export[email,regions,toml]"  # Install with all extras

# Install with specific optional dependency
pip install "pydantic-settings-export[email]"  # Install with email extra
pip install "pydantic-settings-export[regions]"  # Install with regions extra
pip install "pydantic-settings-export[toml]"  # Install with toml extra

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install the package:

   pip install pydantic-settings-export
   

2. Create your settings model:

   from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings
   
   
   class AppSettings(BaseSettings):
       """Application settings."""
       debug: bool = False
       api_key: str
   

3. Generate documentation:

   # Import a specific class
   pydantic-settings-export app.settings:AppSettings
   
   # Import an entire module (auto-discovers all BaseSettings subclasses)
   pydantic-settings-export app.settings
   

For more detailed usage, see our Getting Started Guide.

Note: The package follows SemVer. GitHub releases/tags use v prefix (e.g. v1.0.0), while PyPI versions don't (e.g. 1.0.0).

Installation

Choose your preferred installation method:

# Using pip
pip install pydantic-settings-export

# Using pipx (recommended for CLI usage)
pipx install pydantic-settings-export

# Using uv
uv tool install pydantic-settings-export

Usage

The recommended way to use this package is through its CLI or as a pre-commit hook.

CLI Usage

The CLI provides a powerful interface for generating documentation:

# Basic usage
pydantic-settings-export your_app.settings:Settings

# Multiple generators
pydantic-settings-export --generator markdown --generator dotenv -- your_app.settings:Settings

# Override venv detection from CLI (useful for one-off runs without pyproject.toml)
pydantic-settings-export --venv uv your_app.settings:Settings
pydantic-settings-export --venv .venv your_app.settings:Settings
pydantic-settings-export --venv "" your_app.settings:Settings  # disable

# Help with all options and sub-commands
pydantic-settings-export --help

For complete documentation, including:

• All command options
• Environment variables
• Pre-commit integration
• Troubleshooting guide

See the CLI Documentation

pre-commit hook

The tool can be used as a pre-commit hook to automatically update documentation:

# .pre-commit-config.yaml
repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/jag-k/pydantic-settings-export
    # Use a tag version with the `v` prefix (e.g. v1.0.0)
    rev: v1.0.0
    hooks:
     - id: pydantic-settings-export
       # Optionally, specify the settings file to trigger the hook only on changes to this file
       files: ^app/config/settings\.py$
       # Optionally, add extra dependencies
       additional_dependencies:
         - pydantic-settings-export[email,regions]

NOTE: You can use pre-commit autoupdate to update the hook to the latest version.

Importing settings that depend on project packages

When running as a pre-commit hook the tool executes in its own isolated environment, so your project's installed packages are not on sys.path by default. Use the venv option to make the hook discover and load your project's virtual environment automatically:

# pyproject.toml
[tool.pydantic_settings_export]
venv = "auto"  # auto-detect: ./venv, ./.venv, uv, poetry
# venv = "uv"       # force uv
# venv = "poetry"  # force poetry
# venv = ".venv"   # explicit path (relative to project_dir)

Detection order for "auto": ./venv → ./.venv → uv → Poetry.

CI/CD Integration

# .github/workflows/docs.yml
name: Update Settings Documentation
on:
  push:
    # Optionally, specify the settings file to trigger the hook only on changes to this file
    paths: [ '**/settings.py' ]
jobs:
  docs:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.11"  # Minimum required version
      - run: pip install pydantic-settings-export
      - run: pydantic-settings-export your_app.settings:Settings

Programmatic Usage

While CLI is the recommended way, you can also use the package programmatically:

from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings
from pydantic_settings_export import Exporter


class MySettings(BaseSettings):
    """Application settings."""
    debug: bool = False
    api_key: str

    class Config:
        env_prefix = "APP_"


# Create and run exporter
exporter = Exporter()
exporter.run_all(MySettings)

This will generate documentation using all available generators. For custom configuration, see our Wiki.

Exporting Instances with actual values

You can pass settings instances instead of classes to export their actual runtime values:

from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings
from pydantic_settings_export import Exporter


class MySettings(BaseSettings):
    debug: bool = False
    api_url: str = "http://localhost"


settings = MySettings(debug=True, api_url="https://api.example.com")
exporter = Exporter()
exporter.run_all(settings)

When exporting an instance:

• Default values are shown as comments
• Actual instance values are shown as active configuration
• If a value equals its default, no duplication occurs

Configuration

Basic configuration in pyproject.toml:

[tool.pydantic_settings_export]
project_dir = "."
# Import a specific class or an entire module (auto-discovers all BaseSettings subclasses)
default_settings = ["my_app.settings:AppSettings"]
env_file = ".env"
# Virtual environment for importing settings (useful in pre-commit hooks)
venv = "auto"  # auto | uv | poetry | <path> | null to disable

# Generate Markdown docs
[[tool.pydantic_settings_export.generators.markdown]]
paths = ["docs/settings.md"]

# Generate .env example
[[tool.pydantic_settings_export.generators.dotenv]]
paths = [".env.example"]

# Generate TOML config example
[[tool.pydantic_settings_export.generators.toml]]
paths = ["config.example.toml"]
comment_defaults = true  # Comment out fields with default values

Per-Generator Settings

Each [[tool.pydantic_settings_export.generators.*]] block can define its own set of settings instead of (or in addition to) the global default_settings:

[tool.pydantic_settings_export]
# Applied to all generators by default
default_settings = ["my_app.settings:AppSettings"]

# This generator uses only the global default_settings
[[tool.pydantic_settings_export.generators.markdown]]
paths = ["docs/AppSettings.md"]

# This generator overrides default_settings entirely
[[tool.pydantic_settings_export.generators.markdown]]
paths = ["docs/KafkaProducer.md"]
settings = ["my_app.kafka:KafkaProducerSettings"]

# This generator extends default_settings with an extra class
[[tool.pydantic_settings_export.generators.dotenv]]
paths = [".env.example"]
extend_settings = ["my_app.kafka:KafkaConsumerSettings"]

Field	Description
settings	Overrides default_settings for this block — only the listed classes are exported.
extend_settings	Appends to default_settings for this block. Ignored when settings is set.

For advanced configuration options, see our Configuration Guide.

Examples

See real-world examples of different output formats:

Environment Files

• .env.example - Full example with comments and sections
• .env.only_optional_mode.example - Example with only optional fields

Documentation

• Configuration.md - Full configuration documentation with tables and descriptions
• SimpleConfiguration.md - Basic table-only configuration
• InjectedConfiguration.md - Configuration injected into an existing file

Configuration Files

• config.example.toml - TOML configuration file with comments and type information

  Note: You can use prefix to generate TOML for any custom format, like pyproject.toml.

📚 Learn More

Check out our comprehensive documentation:

• 🏁 Getting Started Guide
• ⚙️ Configuration Options
• 🔍 Understanding Parsers
• 🎨 Available Generators
• 💻 CLI Documentation

🎯 Why This Project?

Managing configuration in Python applications can be challenging:

• Documentation gets outdated
• Environment variables are poorly documented
• Configuration options are scattered

This project solves these problems by:

• Automatically generating documentation from your Pydantic models
• Keeping documentation in sync with code
• Providing multiple output formats for different use cases

Development Context

This is a personal pet project maintained in my spare time. The development priorities are:

1. Bug fixes
2. Features from Roadmap:
   • Issues with the closest milestone,
   • General milestones' issues.
   • Issues labeled bug or feature request.
   • Features listed in this README.
3. New feature proposals

Note: While we strive for quality and responsiveness, resolution timelines can't be guaranteed.

Development Tools

This project uses modern Python development tools:

• 🚀 uv - Fast Python package installer and resolver
• 🔍 ruff - Fast Python linter and formatter
• 📦 hatch - Modern Python project management
• ✅ pre-commit - Git hooks management

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Before contributing:

1. Create a GitHub Issue as the first step — this is required
2. Fork the repository to your own GitHub account
3. Create a branch following our naming convention:
   • Format: <domain>/<issue-number>-<short-description>.
   • Domains: fix or feature.
   • Example: feature/6-inject-config-to-markdown.
4. Make your changes
5. Submit a PR with a changelog in description

For complete guidelines, see our:

• Code of Conduct
• Contributing Guide

Support

Primary Contact

• 🐛 Issue Tracker (required first point of contact)

Secondary Contact (after creating an issue)

• 📧 GitHub email: [e-mail]
• 💬 Discussions
• 📚 Documentation

License

MIT