well-actually 0.2.3

Well, actually — an opinionated Python linter and formatter: bans else and elif, allows only flat ternaries, and enforces blank lines around return

actually

Well, actually, your code should read like this.

actually is a highly opinionated Python linter and formatter built on ast-grep. It enforces a guard-clause style:

• else is banned — on if, and as the completion clause on for, while, and try alike
• elif is banned
• ternaries are allowed only flat — nested conditional expressions are banned
• return needs a blank line above it when it follows other statements in its block
• return needs a blank line below it when more code follows

Usage

uvx well-actually@latest check .
uvx well-actually@latest format .

The @latest matters: a bare uvx well-actually reuses a cached tool environment and can silently run an outdated version; @latest re-resolves against the index every time.

Installed (uv tool install well-actually), the short command is available too:

actually check .
actually format .

check reports violations and exits non-zero when it finds any. Both commands lint .py files only; directory scans skip environment, cache, and VCS directories (.venv, venv, .git, __pycache__, node_modules, and friends) and respect .gitignore files — nested ones and negations included, matched via pathspec (black's approach), so no git installation is required. When a .git directory is found above the scanned path, .gitignore files up to that repo root apply as well. Global excludes (core.excludesFile, .git/info/exclude) are not consulted. A .py file passed explicitly is always linted.

format rewrites files in place, then reports what it could not fix:

• inserts the missing blank lines around return
• dedents a try/except/else completion clause into straight-line code when every except body already exits (return, raise, continue, break) — when one falls through, the rewrite would change behaviour, so it is reported for human refactoring instead

Example

def describe_config(path):
    try:
        config = parse_json_file(path)
    except ParseError:
        return "invalid config"
    else:
        return describe(config)

actually format rewrites this to:

def describe_config(path):
    try:
        config = parse_json_file(path)
    except ParseError:
        return "invalid config"

    return describe(config)

Development

uv sync
uv run pytest
uv run actually check src/ tests/