task-jogger 1.1.1

A simple Python-based command line tool that is not quite a fully-fledged task runner

More affectionately known as jogger.

jogger is a simple Python-based command line tool that isn’t quite a fully-fledged task runner. In addition to supporting arbitrary tasks, run either directly on the command line or as Python scripts, it ships with some common, useful, Django-aware tasks that can adapt their behaviour based on which packages are available in the system.

Full documentation at: https://task-jogger.readthedocs.io/

Installation

Install the latest stable version from PyPI:

pip install task-jogger

Quick start

1. Create jog.py

The jog.py file, created in the project root directory, stores the tasks defined for the project. It is a regular Python module, the only requirement being that it defines a tasks variable as a dictionary.

2. Define tasks

Keys in the jog.py file’s tasks dictionary form each task’s name, and values describe the tasks themselves. At their simplest, a task can be a string defining a command to execute on the command line:

# jog.py
tasks = {
    'hello': 'echo "Hello, World!"',
    'test': 'coverage run python manage.py test'
}

Alternatively, a task can be a Python function that returns a command to execute on the command line. This can be useful if the command is more complex to construct or depends on dynamic values:

# jog.py
def run_tests(settings, stdout, stderr):
    """
    Run the Django test suite, with coverage.py if installed.
    """

    try:
        import coverage
    except ImportError:
        stdout.write('Warning: coverage.py not installed.', style='warning')
        return 'python manage.py test'
    else:
        return 'coverage run python manage.py test'

tasks = {
    'test': run_tests
}

Finally, particularly complex tasks can be defined as classes. Such tasks can define their own custom arguments:

# jog.py
from jogger.tasks import Task


class TestTask(Task):

    help = 'Run the Django test suite, with coverage.py if installed.'

    def add_arguments(self, parser):

        parser.add_argument(
            '-q', '--quick',
            action='store_true',
            help=(
                'Run a "quick" variant of the task: no coverage analysis and '
                'running tests in parallel.'
            )
        )

    def handle(self, *args, **options):

        command = 'python manage.py test'

        if options['quick']:
            command = f'{command} --parallel'
        else:
            try:
                import coverage
            except ImportError:
                self.stdout.write('Warning: coverage.py not installed.', style='warning')
            else:
                command = f'coverage run {command}'

        self.cli(command)

tasks = {
    'test': TestTask
}

3. Run jog

The jog command is the interface to the tasks defined in jog.py.

Given the name of a task, jog will run that task:

$ jog test

If the task accepts arguments, they can also be provided:

$ jog test --quick

Executed with no arguments, jog will display a list of all available tasks. Tasks defined as functions or classes can define a description to be displayed in this listing. Tasks defined as strings simply display the command they will run. The following shows the output of a jog.py file containing a mixture of string-based, function-based, and class-based tasks:

$ jog
Available tasks:
string: echo "Hello, World!"
function: A task defined as a function.
class: A task defined as a class.
    See "jog class --help" for usage details