pytest-devtools

A pytest plugin that smooths over a few common annoyances when writing and debugging tests.

Features

• Debug fixture: pretty-prints variables, paths, and data structures with Rich, and only shows the output when a test fails.
• Stripped capsys output: removes ANSI escape codes (and optionally the tmp_path prefix) from captured stdout/stderr so assertions stay readable.
• Visible whitespace in diffs: replaces tabs, trailing spaces, carriage returns, and newlines with Unicode symbols when an assertion fails.
• Terminal column width control: sets COLUMNS for every test so libraries that auto-wrap (Rich, Click, etc.) produce stable output.
• CLI runner output post-processing: cli_runner and typer_runner fixtures strip ANSI codes, tmp_path prefixes, and trailing whitespace from click/typer CliRunner results, the same way capsys does for regular captured output.

Installation

# uv
uv add pytest-devtools

# pip
pip install pytest-devtools

Requirements: Python 3.10+ and pytest 7.0+.

The plugin registers itself through the pytest11 entry point, so no conftest.py changes are needed.

Debug Fixture

The debug fixture is a callable that pretty-prints any Python object using Rich. Output is buffered during the test and written to stderr only if the test fails (or always, with --print-debug).

Basic Usage

def test_user_creation(debug, tmp_path):
    user = {"name": "Alice", "roles": ["admin", "editor"]}
    debug(user)

    config_path = tmp_path / "config.toml"
    config_path.write_text("[settings]\nverbose = true")
    debug(config_path)

    assert user["name"] == "Alice"

When the test fails, stderr shows the buffered output between rule separators:

──────────────────────────── Debug ─────────────────────────────
{'name': 'Alice', 'roles': ['admin', 'editor']}
──────────────────────────── Debug ─────────────────────────────

Multiple Values and Titles

Pass several arguments in a single call, and use title to label the section:

def test_transform(debug):
    before = [1, 2, 3]
    after = [x * 2 for x in before]
    debug(before, after, title="Transform")

Per-Call Options

Override any option on a single call:

def test_deep_structure(debug, tmp_path):
    nested = {"a": {"b": {"c": {"d": "deep"}}}}

    # Limit nesting depth
    debug(nested, max_depth=2)

    # Limit collection length
    debug(list(range(100)), max_length=5)

    # Show type annotations
    debug(nested, show_type=True)

    # Show directory tree for Path objects
    debug(tmp_path, list_dir_contents=True)

    # Disable tmp_path prefix stripping
    debug(tmp_path / "output.txt", strip_tmp_path=False)

Path Handling

When you pass a pathlib.Path:

• tmp_path stripping (default: on). If the path is inside tmp_path, only the relative portion is shown. A path like /var/folders/.../pytest-1234/test_foo0/subdir/file.txt displays as subdir/file.txt.
• Directory listing (default: off). When enabled and the path is a directory, a Rich tree shows the directory contents recursively.

CLI Options

Flag	Description
--print-debug	Always show debug output, even on passing tests
--debug-strip-tmp-path	Strip tmp_path prefix from Path objects (default)
--no-debug-strip-tmp-path	Show full absolute paths
--debug-list-dir-contents	Show directory tree for Path directories
--no-debug-list-dir-contents	Don't list directory contents (default)
--debug-max-depth=N	Limit nesting depth in pretty-printed output
--debug-max-length=N	Limit collection length in pretty-printed output
--debug-show-type	Show type annotations above each value
--no-debug-show-type	Don't show type annotations (default)

INI Options

Add these to pyproject.toml under [tool.pytest.ini_options]:

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
print_debug = true
debug_strip_tmp_path = true
debug_list_dir_contents = false
debug_max_depth = 4
debug_max_length = 20
debug_show_type = false

Option Precedence

Per-call arguments win, then CLI flags, then INI settings:

per-call override  >  CLI flag  >  INI option  >  built-in default

Stripped capsys Output

The plugin overrides the built-in capsys fixture so that readouterr() returns post-processed strings. Two transformations are available:

• ANSI escape stripping (default: on)
• tmp_path prefix stripping (default: off, opt-in)

Both can be disabled or enabled independently, and they compose when both are active.

ANSI Escape Stripping

Tests that exercise code printing colored output (Rich, Click, Colorama, etc.) usually don't care about the escape codes. By default, they're removed before you see the captured string:

def test_greeting(capsys):
    print("\x1b[32mHello, world!\x1b[0m")

    captured = capsys.readouterr()
    assert captured.out == "Hello, world!\n"

To keep the codes for a single test, mark it with @pytest.mark.keep_ansi:

import pytest

@pytest.mark.keep_ansi
def test_color_codes(capsys):
    print("\x1b[32mgreen\x1b[0m")
    captured = capsys.readouterr()
    assert "\x1b[32m" in captured.out

To turn stripping off globally:

pytest --no-strip-ansi

tmp_path Stripping

Code that prints a tmp_path-rooted file produces output like /var/folders/.../pytest-1234/test_foo0/file.txt, which is awkward to assert on. Opt in to capsys tmp_path stripping to collapse those prefixes to their relative portion:

def test_writes_log(capsys, tmp_path):
    log = tmp_path / "app.log"
    print(f"wrote {log}")

    captured = capsys.readouterr()
    assert captured.out == "wrote app.log\n"

Enable it for one run:

pytest --capsys-strip-tmp-path

Or globally in pyproject.toml:

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
capsys_strip_tmp_path = true

--no-capsys-strip-tmp-path overrides the INI setting for a single run. Stripping applies to both captured.out and captured.err.

INI Options

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
strip_ansi = true                # default: true
capsys_strip_tmp_path = false    # default: false

CLI Runner Output

click.testing.CliRunner and typer.testing.CliRunner replace sys.stdout and sys.stderr with their own in-memory buffers while a command runs. Nothing a CLI writes inside invoke() reaches pytest's capture machinery, so the capsys override above cannot see it and result.output arrives unprocessed.

The cli_runner and typer_runner fixtures are drop-in replacements that post-process the runner's own Result.

# uv
uv add --dev "pytest-devtools[click]"
uv add --dev "pytest-devtools[typer]"

# pip
pip install "pytest-devtools[click]"
pip install "pytest-devtools[typer]"

Neither extra is strictly required. A project testing a CLI already depends on click or typer directly, and the fixtures activate whenever the library is importable. The extras exist to record the supported versions:

Fixture	Requires
cli_runner	click>=8.2
typer_runner	typer>=0.25

Those floors are where the runner exposes stdout and stderr as separate strings. Below them, result.stderr raises ValueError: stderr not separately captured and result.output silently returns the two streams mixed together. Both fixtures check the installed version at setup and fail with an explicit message rather than letting that surface later.

click

from myapp.cli import main


def test_greeting(cli_runner):
    result = cli_runner.invoke(main, ["--name", "world"])

    assert result.exit_code == 0
    assert result.output == "Hello world\n"

typer

from myapp.cli import app


def test_greeting(typer_runner):
    result = typer_runner.invoke(app, ["--name", "world"])

    assert result.exit_code == 0
    assert result.output == "Hello world\n"

Both fixtures are real subclasses of their framework's runner, so isolated_filesystem() and every other runner method work as usual. Only invoke() changes.

When a transform is active, invoke() returns a transparent proxy over the framework's Result: isinstance(result, click.testing.Result) and a -> Result annotation both hold, but type(result) reports the proxy, not the framework's class.

ANSI Escape Stripping

On by default, and controlled by the same settings as capsys: --no-strip-ansi, strip_ansi = false, and @pytest.mark.keep_ansi for a single test.

This matters most for CLIs that print through Rich. Click strips its own echo() styling inside the runner already, but a Console(force_terminal=True) writes escape codes straight past that.

tmp_path Stripping

Off by default. Enable with --cli-runner-strip-tmp-path or cli_runner_strip_tmp_path = true to collapse paths under tmp_path to their relative portion:

def test_writes_file(cli_runner, tmp_path):
    result = cli_runner.invoke(main, ["--out", str(tmp_path / "sub" / "report.txt")])

    assert "wrote sub/report.txt" in result.output

Trailing Whitespace Stripping

Off by default. Enable with --cli-runner-strip-trailing-whitespace or cli_runner_strip_trailing_whitespace = true.

Typer renders help through a Rich panel, which pads every line out to the full terminal width. At a wide --columns setting that means lines of mostly blanks, which makes asserting on --help output impractical:

def test_help(typer_runner):
    result = typer_runner.invoke(app, ["--help"])

    assert "Usage" in result.output
    assert not any(line.endswith(" ") for line in result.output.split("\n"))

Terminal Width

Click's help formatter caps at 80 columns and ignores the COLUMNS environment variable, so the --columns setting alone never reached help text. When the column width feature is enabled, both fixtures pass it to invoke() as the terminal_width context setting. An explicit terminal_width argument always wins:

def test_narrow_help(cli_runner):
    result = cli_runner.invoke(main, ["--help"], terminal_width=40)

Runners You Construct Yourself

If runners come from your own conftest fixture and you would rather not switch to cli_runner, opt into patching instead. With cli_runner_patch_result = true or --cli-runner-patch-result, the same post-processing applies to every Result for the duration of each test, whoever built the runner:

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
cli_runner_patch_result = true

Three caveats:

• Terminal width injection does not reach externally built runners. Only the cli_runner and typer_runner fixtures' own invoke() passes terminal_width through; a runner you construct yourself keeps whatever width it would normally use.
• Enabling patch mode changes what cli_runner.invoke() and typer_runner.invoke() return too: once the Result classes are patched, the fixtures' own invoke() skips its wrapping and returns the framework's Result directly instead of the proxy.
• The patch is undone by monkeypatch, whose finalizer runs after every function-scoped fixture's teardown but before any session- or module-scoped one. A session- or module-scoped fixture that reads a Result during its own teardown therefore sees the raw, unprocessed output.

Visible Whitespace in Assertions

When two strings differ only in whitespace, pytest's default diff is hard to read. This plugin replaces invisible characters with visible Unicode symbols in the assertion failure message.

Symbol Reference

Character	Symbol	Name
Trailing space	·	Middle dot
Tab (\t)	→	Rightwards arrow
Carriage return (\r)	←	Leftwards arrow
Newline (\n)	↵	Return symbol

Example Output

For a test like:

def test_output():
    assert "hello " == "hello"

The failure message shows:

AssertionError: 'hello·' == 'hello'

Whitespace-visible comparison:
  Left:  'hello·'
  Right: 'hello'

Disabling

Use the --no-show-whitespace CLI flag, or set the INI option:

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
show_whitespace = false

Terminal Column Width

Many terminal-aware libraries (Rich, Click, etc.) detect terminal width at runtime. In test environments, the detected width is often very small, which causes unwanted line wraps in captured output. This plugin can set the COLUMNS environment variable for every test to keep output stable.

The feature is disabled by default. Enable it with the --columns CLI flag or via INI options.

CLI Option

Set COLUMNS for a single run:

pytest --columns=180

INI Options

Enable it permanently in pyproject.toml:

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
set_columns = true   # turn the feature on
columns = 180        # value to set when enabled

The --columns CLI flag overrides the INI columns value when both are present.

Configuration Summary

Every feature is configurable through CLI flags and pyproject.toml INI options. The debug fixture additionally supports per-call arguments.

Feature	Default	Toggle with
Debug fixture	Output on failure	Always available; --print-debug to also show on success
ANSI stripping	On	--no-strip-ansi or strip_ansi = false
tmp_path in capsys	Off	--capsys-strip-tmp-path or capsys_strip_tmp_path = true
Visible whitespace	On	--no-show-whitespace or show_whitespace = false
Column width	Off	--columns=N or set_columns = true
CLI runner ANSI	On	Shares --no-strip-ansi / strip_ansi = false
tmp_path in runner	Off	--cli-runner-strip-tmp-path or cli_runner_strip_tmp_path = true
Runner trailing space	Off	--cli-runner-strip-trailing-whitespace or cli_runner_strip_trailing_whitespace = true
Patch external runners	Off	--cli-runner-patch-result or cli_runner_patch_result = true

AI Policy

All AI generated content is and always will be meticulously reviewed and approved by the author.

License

MIT