QGIS Plugin Analyzer 🛡️

👉 View Full Rules Catalog (RULES.md)

Quality Metrics:

The QGIS Plugin Analyzer is a static analysis tool designed specifically for QGIS (PyQGIS) plugin developers. Its goal is to elevate plugin quality by ensuring they follow community best practices and are optimized for AI-assisted development.

✨ Main Features

• Quality Blindage: Comprehensive test suite with 76% global coverage and >95% on core AST visitors.
• Gen 6 Architecture: Modernized agentic system with observability, memory lifecycle, and CodeWhale runtime bridge.
• Scaffold System: Integrated blueprints for standardizing QGIS and mining plugin generation.
• Security Core (Bandit-inspired): Professional vulnerability scanning detecting eval, exec, shell injections, and SQL injection risks.
• Deep Entropy Secret Scanner: Detects hardcoded API keys, passwords, and sensitive tokens using regex and information entropy.
• High-Performance Engine: Parallel analysis powered by ProcessPoolExecutor with single-pass AST traversal and shared worker context.
• Project Auto-Detection: Intelligently distinguishes between official QGIS Plugins and Generic Python Projects, tailoring validation logic accordingly.
• Advanced Ignore Engine: Robust .analyzerignore support with non-anchored patterns and smart default excludes (.venv, build, etc.).
• Deep Semantic Analysis: Cross-file dependency graphing (Mermaid), circular import detection, and module coupling metrics.
• Interactive Auto-Fix Mode: Automatically fix common QGIS issues (GDAL imports, PyQt bridge, logging, i18n) with safety checks.
• Official Repository Compliance: Proactive validation of binaries, package size, and metadata URLs.
• Real-time Progress: CLI feedback with a progress bar and ETA tracking.
• Enhanced Configuration Profiles: Rule-level severity control (error, warning, info, ignore) via pyproject.toml.
• Integrated Ruff Analysis: Combines custom QGIS rules with the fastest linter in the Python ecosystem.
• AST-based i18n Audit: Portable AST rule recognizing self.tr() and QCoreApplication.translate(), excluding docstrings/technical strings and honoring # no-i18n / # noqa.
• Cyclomatic Complexity Gate: --max-cc N fails CI when any function exceeds the threshold, with cc_gate/cc_violations in --json.
• Qt6 Migration Rules: 11 AST-based QT6_* rules (drop-in parity with flake8-qgis QGS4xx) detecting APIs removed in Qt6.
• CI Output Contract: --json, --include-content, and a versioned/schema'd project_context.json for machine-readable integration.
• Qt Resource Validation: Detect missing or broken resource paths (:/plugins/...) in your code.
• Extended Safety Audit: Detection of signal leaks, missing slots, and UI-blocking loops (QgsTask suggestions).
• Embedded Web Server: View reports instantly with the built-in serve command.
• AI-Ready: Generates structured summaries and optimized contexts for LLMs.
• Zero Runtime Dependencies: Works using only the Python standard library (Ruff as an external tool).

🆕 What's New in v1.14.0

Analyzer Generalization - The analyzer now audits any QGIS plugin with a portable AST-based i18n rule (recognizing self.tr() and QCoreApplication.translate(), plus inline # no-i18n), a --max-cc N complexity gate for CI, and 11 Qt6 migration rules matching flake8-qgis QGS4xx.

• 🌐 AST-based i18n - Replaced the string heuristic with a precise AST rule; no more false positives on translated strings.
• 🚦 --max-cc gate - Fail CI on excessive cyclomatic complexity.
• 🆙 Qt6 migration rules - Drop-in parity with flake8-qgis QGS4xx.
• 🐍 Python 3.11 - Raised the floor and dropped the hand-rolled TOML parser for stdlib tomllib.
• 📦 CI output contract - --json, --include-content, versioned project_context.json.
• 🕒 Stale-cache detection - summary warns when results are outdated.

📖 Full Release Notes | 🗺️ CLI Commands Roadmap

⚖️ Why use this Analyzer? (Comparison)

Key Differentiators

1. Shift Left (Run Locally): The biggest advantage is being able to run the same high-standard checks as the Official Repository before you upload your plugin. No more "reject-fix-upload" loops.
2. High-Performance Hybrid Engine: Combines multi-core AST processing with deep understanding of cross-file relationships and Qt-specific patterns.
3. Safety-First Auto-Fixing: AST-based transformations with Git status verification and interactive diff previews.
4. Zero Runtime Stack: Minimal footprint, ultra-fast execution, and easy CI integration.
5. AI-Centric Design: Built to help developers and AI agents understand complex QGIS plugins instantly.

🚀 Installation and Usage

Installation with uv (Recommended):

If you have uv installed, you can install the analyzer quickly and in isolation:

1. As a global tool (isolated):

uv tool install git+https://github.com/geociencio/qgis-plugin-analyzer.git

2. Standard pip installation (Git):

pip install git+https://github.com/geociencio/qgis-plugin-analyzer.git

2. Local installation for development:

git clone https://github.com/geociencio/qgis-plugin-analyzer
cd qgis-plugin-analyzer
uv sync

Installation with pip:

pip install .

Main Commands:

1. Analyze a Plugin (Full Analysis):

qgis-analyzer analyze /path/to/your/plugin -o ./quality_report

2. Specialized Analysis (NEW in v1.9.0):

# Internationalization audit only
qgis-analyzer analyze i18n /path/to/your/plugin

# Security vulnerability scanning only
qgis-analyzer analyze security /path/to/your/plugin

# Performance and UI blocking detection only
qgis-analyzer analyze performance /path/to/your/plugin

# Dependency and coupling analysis only
qgis-analyzer analyze architecture /path/to/your/plugin

# QGIS metadata validation only
qgis-analyzer analyze metadata /path/to/your/plugin

3. Auto-Fix issues (Dry Run):

qgis-analyzer fix /path/to/your/plugin

4. Legacy Support: The default command remains analysis if no subcommand is specified:

qgis-analyzer /path/to/your/plugin

🔄 Pre-commit Hook

You can run qgis-plugin-analyzer automatically before every commit to ensure quality. Add this to your .pre-commit-config.yaml:

  - repo: https://github.com/geociencio/qgis-plugin-analyzer
    rev: main  # Use 'main' for latest features or a specific tag like v1.5.0
    hooks:
      - id: qgis-plugin-analyzer

🤖 GitHub Action

Use it directly in your CI/CD workflows:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
  - name: Run QGIS Quality Check
    uses: geociencio/qgis-plugin-analyzer@main
    with:
      path: .
      output: quality_report
      args: --profile release

⚙️ Configuration (pyproject.toml)

You can customize the analyzer's behavior using a [tool.qgis-analyzer] section in your pyproject.toml.

[tool.qgis-analyzer]
# Profiles allow different settings for CI vs Local
[tool.qgis-analyzer.profiles.default]
strict = false
generate_html = false  # CLI default

[tool.qgis-analyzer.profiles.release]
strict = true
fail_on_error = true

[tool.qgis-analyzer.profiles.default.rules]
GDAL_DIRECT_IMPORT = "error"    # Ban direct 'import gdal'
IFACE_AS_ARGUMENT = "warning"   # Warn on iface passed as an argument
MANUAL_RESOURCE_PATH = "ignore" # Ignore resource path checks

# i18n rule configuration (AST-based):
[tool.qgis-analyzer.profiles.default.rules.MISSING_I18N]
extra_ignore_calls = ["customSetLabel"]
extra_exact_ignores = ["My App Name"]

⚠️ Technical Limitations

This tool performs Static Analysis (AST & Regex parsing). It does not execute your code or load QGIS libraries.

• Dynamic Imports: Imports inside functions or conditional blocks might be analyzed differently than top-level imports.
• Runtime Validation: Checks like "Missing Resources" rely on static string analysis of .qrc files and path strings. It cannot verify resources loaded dynamically at runtime.
• False Positives: While we strive for accuracy, complex meta-programming or unusual patterns might trigger false positives. Use # noqa or .analyzerignore to handle these cases.

⌨️ Full CLI Reference

Note: The Python package is named qgis-plugin-analyzer, but the command-line tool is installed as qgis-analyzer.

qgis-analyzer analyze [scope] [path]

Audits an existing QGIS plugin repository with optional specialized scopes.

NEW in v1.9.0: Specialized analysis scopes for targeted auditing.

Available Scopes:

• i18n - Internationalization and translation audit (detects untranslated strings)
• security - Security vulnerability scanning (unsafe calls, hardcoded secrets, SQL injection)
• performance - Performance and UI blocking detection (blocking loops, missing indexes)
• architecture - Dependency and coupling analysis (imports, QGIS API usage)
• metadata - QGIS metadata validation (metadata.txt compliance)
• all or no scope - Full analysis (default, legacy compatible)

Arguments:

Examples:

# Full analysis (legacy compatible)
qgis-analyzer analyze .
qgis-analyzer analyze /path/to/plugin

# Specialized i18n analysis
qgis-analyzer analyze i18n .

# Security-only scan with reports
qgis-analyzer analyze security . --report

qgis-analyzer fix

Automatically fix common QGIS issues identified during analysis.

qgis-analyzer summary

Shows a professional, color-coded summary of findings directly in your terminal.

qgis-analyzer security

Performs a focused security scan on a file or directory.

qgis-analyzer version

Shows the current version of the analyzer.

Example:

# Executive summary
qgis-analyzer summary

# Identify high-complexity functions
qgis-analyzer summary --by functions

qgis-analyzer list-rules

Displays the full catalog of implemented QGIS audit rules with their severity and descriptions.

qgis-analyzer graph

Visualizes the project's dependency graph.

qgis-analyzer serve

Starts a local web server to view the generated HTML reports.

qgis-analyzer init

Initializes a recommended .analyzerignore file in the current directory with common Python and QGIS development exclusions.

📊 Generated Reports

• project_context.json: Full structured data for external integrations.

📜 Audit Rules

For a complete list of all implemented checks, their severity, and recommendations, please refer to the:

👉 Detailed Rules Catalog (RULES.md)

📚 References and Standards

The development of this analyzer is based on official QGIS community guidelines, geospatial standards, and industry best practices:

Official QGIS Documentation

• PyQGIS Developer Cookbook: The primary resource for PyQGIS API usage and standards.
• QGIS Plugin Repository Requirements: Mandatory criteria for plugin approval in the official repository.
• QGIS Coding Standards: Core style and organization guidelines for the QGIS project.
• QGIS HIG (Human Interface Guidelines): Standards for consistent and accessible user interface design.
• QGIS Security Scanning Documentation: Official guide on automated security analysis (Bandit, detect-secrets) for plugins.

Industry & Community Standards

• flake8-qgis Rules: Community-driven linting rules for PyQGIS (QGS101-412).
• PEP 8 Style Guide: The fundamental style guide for Python code.
• PEP 257 Docstring Conventions: Standards for docstring structure and content.
• Maintainability Index (SEI): Methodology for measuring software maintainability.
• Conventional Commits: Standard for clear, machine-readable commit history.
• Keep a Changelog: Best practices for maintainable version history.

Security Standards

• Bandit (PyCQA): The security rules implemented (B1xx - B6xx) are directly derived from the Bandit project's rule set for identifying common security issues in Python code.
• CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration): Security findings are mapped to standard CWE IDs (e.g., CWE-78 Command Injection, CWE-89 SQL Injection) for industry-standard classification.
• OWASP Top 10: The "Hardcoded Secret" and "Injection" checks align with critical OWASP vulnerabilities.

Internal Resources

• Detailed Rules Catalog: Full documentation of all audit rules implemented in this analyzer.
• Standardized Scoring Metrics: Mathematical logic and thresholds for project evaluation.
• Project Roadmap: Current status and future plans for the analyzer.
• Documentation Folder: Historical release notes, competitive analysis, and modernization guides.

🛠️ Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please refer to our Contributing Guide to learn how to report bugs, propose rules, and submit code changes.

Audit rules are located in src/analyzer/rules/ (regex catalog) and src/analyzer/visitors/ (AST visitors). Feel free to add new rules following the existing pattern!

⚖️ License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 (GPL v3). See the LICENSE file for details.

Developed for the SecInterp team and the QGIS community.