Python Scripting Skill and Rules

Always create a requirements.txt for dependencies - List all external libraries your script uses in a requirements.txt file for easy installation via pip.

Always create a README.md to display the arguments for the script.

Argument Parsing Choice

•Use argparse for command-line argument parsing
•Group required arguments first, then optional ones
•Use type=str explicitly for string arguments
•Use action="store_true" for boolean flags
•Provide clear help text for each argument
•Use lowercase with dashes for argument names (--my-arg)

Follow this structure:

python

import argparse

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        description="Brief description of what the script does"
    )
    
    # Required arguments
    parser.add_argument("--token", required=True, type=str, help="Description of token")
    parser.add_argument("--name", required=True, type=str, help="Description of name")
    
    # Optional arguments with defaults
    parser.add_argument(
        "--optional-param",
        required=False,
        type=str,
        default="default_value",
        help="Description (comma-separated for lists)",
    )
    
    # Boolean flags
    parser.add_argument(
        "--enable-feature",
        action="store_true",
        default=False,
        required=False,
        help="Boolean to enable feature",
    )
    
    args = parser.parse_args()
    
    # Access arguments via args.token, args.name, etc.
    # Note: dashes become underscores (--optional-param -> args.optional_param)

Authentication Strategy

When dealing with authentication tokens or API keys, follow this order of precedence for retrieving them:

The priority will always be an environment variable.

If an environment variable not found will fallback to trying to find a .env file which has the same variable name described.

If neither is found, you may use a --token argument to pass the value directly when executing the script.

Function Descriptions

Endorse validation for function arguments and return types using type hints.

Use a virtual environment

bash

  rm -rf venv
  $PYTHON_BIN -m venv venv
  source venv/bin/activate
  python -m pip install --upgrade pip
  if [ -f requirements.txt ]; then
    pip install -r requirements.txt
  else
    echo 'INFO: No requirement files found!'
  fi