pylint-google-style

Pylint plugins that enforce two import rules from the Google Python Style Guide:

1. Import modules, not symbols — prefer from a.b import c and reference c.Symbol, rather than from a.b.c import Symbol.
2. Use absolute imports, not relative imports — prefer from mypackage.utils import helper over from ..utils import helper.

Google publishes an official pylintrc alongside the style guide, but stock pylint has no checkers for these two import rules, so they go unenforced. This package fills that gap: use it together with Google's pylintrc, not instead of it.

Installation

uv add --dev pylint-google-style
# or
pip install pylint-google-style

Usage

Start from Google's official pylintrc as your baseline:

curl -O https://google.github.io/styleguide/pylintrc

Then enable these checkers by adding the plugins to that .pylintrc:

[MAIN]
load-plugins =
    pylint_google_style.import_module,
    pylint_google_style.relative_import

Or on the command line:

pylint --load-plugins=pylint_google_style.import_module,pylint_google_style.relative_import your_package/

Checks

__init__.py files are exempt from both checkers, since re-exporting symbols there is idiomatic.

Example

# flagged (C9001): symbol imported from a module
from os.path import join

# preferred
from os import path

path.join(...)

# flagged (C9002): relative import
from ..utils import helper

# preferred
from mypackage.utils import helper

Configuration

The import-module checker accepts additional modules to exempt from the symbol-vs-module rule (on top of the built-in exemptions for typing-related modules such as typing, typing_extensions, collections.abc, and __future__):

[IMPORT-MODULE]
import-module-exceptions =
    numpy,
    pandas

Development

uv sync
uv run pytest                       # run tests
uv run ruff check .                 # lint
uv run ruff format --check .        # formatting

License

MIT © Zhitao Gong