Ruff 0 15 18

ruff 0.15.18

Overview

Ruff is an extremely fast Python linter and code formatter written in Rust, designed as a drop-in replacement for Flake8 (plus dozens of plugins), Black, isort, pydocstyle, pyupgrade, autoflake, and more — executing tens to hundreds of times faster than any individual tool.

Version 0.15.18 supports Python 3.7 through 3.15, includes over 900 built-in lint rules across 30+ linter plugins (Pyflakes, pycodestyle, flake8-bugbear, isort, etc.), and a Black-compatible formatter. New in this release: ruff analyze graph for dependency mapping, human-readable rule names in CLI output, and improved __init__.py import fix safety in preview mode.

Usage

Installation

# Via uv (recommended)
uv tool install ruff@0.15.18

# Or ephemeral via uvx
uvx ruff check        # Lint current directory
uvx ruff format       # Format current directory

# Via pip
pip install ruff==0.15.18

# Standalone installer (macOS/Linux)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/ruff/0.15.18/install.sh | sh

Core Commands

# Linting
ruff check                    # Lint current directory
ruff check --fix              # Lint and auto-fix
ruff check --fix --unsafe-fixes   # Include unsafe fixes
ruff check --diff             # Show diff without writing
ruff check --select E,F,B     # Enable specific rule categories
ruff check --ignore E501      # Ignore specific rules
ruff check --statistics       # Show violation counts per rule
ruff check --add-noqa         # Auto-add noqa comments

# Formatting
ruff format                   # Format in-place
ruff format --check           # Check without writing (non-zero exit if changes needed)
ruff format --diff            # Show formatting diff

# Inspection
ruff rule F401                # Explain a specific rule
ruff rule --all               # List all rules
ruff config                   # List all config options
ruff config line-length       # Describe a specific option
ruff linter                   # List supported upstream linters

# Analysis
ruff analyze graph            # Generate dependency/dependent graph

# LSP
ruff server                   # Run language server (for editor integration)

Configuration Files

Ruff reads configuration from pyproject.toml, ruff.toml, or .ruff.toml (precedence: .ruff.toml > ruff.toml > pyproject.toml).

Minimal pyproject.toml:

[tool.ruff]
line-length = 88
target-version = "py312"

[tool.ruff.lint]
select = ["E", "F", "B", "UP", "SIM", "I"]
ignore = ["E501"]

[tool.ruff.format]
quote-style = "double"

Equivalent ruff.toml:

line-length = 88
target-version = "py312"

[lint]
select = ["E", "F", "B", "UP", "SIM", "I"]
ignore = ["E501"]

[format]
quote-style = "double"

Rule Selection

• Use select for an explicit rule set (preferred over extend-select).
• Use ALL cautiously — it enables all rules and picks up new rules on upgrade.
• Start small (select = ["E", "F"]) and add categories incrementally.
• Preview rules require preview = true in config or --preview flag.

Per-File Ignores

[tool.ruff.lint.per-file-ignores]
"__init__.py" = ["E402"]
"**/{tests,docs}/*" = ["E402", "S101"]

Extending Parent Config

[tool.ruff]
extend = "../pyproject.toml"
line-length = 100

CLI Overrides

# Override a single setting without a config file
ruff check --config "lint.line-length = 100"

# Ignore all config files
ruff check --isolated

Gotchas

• select on CLI replaces config select — running ruff check --select F401 enforces only F401, not the union of CLI and config rules. Use --extend-select to add to the config set instead.
• Preview rules need explicit opt-in — selecting a preview rule code (e.g., via extend-select) does nothing unless preview = true is also enabled for lint or format.
• Config file discovery uses closest match, not cascade — Ruff picks the nearest config file and ignores parent configs. Use extend = "../path" to inherit settings explicitly.
• Files passed directly bypass excludes — ruff check /path/to/excluded/file.py always lints the file unless --force-exclude is also set.
• .ruff.toml takes precedence — if multiple config file types exist in the same directory, .ruff.toml > ruff.toml > pyproject.toml.
• pyproject.toml needs [tool.ruff] section — Ruff ignores pyproject.toml files that lack this section during config discovery.
• Formatter is Black-compatible but not interchangeable long-term — Ruff's formatter differs from Black in a few conscious ways. Do not mix them on the same codebase over time.
• --fix excludes unsafe fixes by default — use --unsafe-fixes to include fixes that may change semantics (e.g., refactoring patterns).
• Jupyter notebooks are linted/formatted by default — exclude with [tool.ruff.format] exclude = ["*.ipynb"] if formatting notebooks causes issues.
• target-version inferred from requires-python — if no config specifies target-version, Ruff falls back to the requires-python field in a nearby pyproject.toml.

References

• [01-configuration](references/01-configuration.md) — Config file formats, discovery rules, all settings
• [02-linter-rules](references/02-linter-rules.md) — Rule categories, selection strategies, fix behavior
• [03-formatter](references/03-formatter.md) — Formatter options, Black compatibility, docstring formatting
• [04-ci-integration](references/04-ci-integration.md) — GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, pre-commit hooks
• [05-editor-setup](references/05-editor-setup.md) — VS Code, Neovim, PyCharm, LSP configuration

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: tangledgroup
• Source: tangledgroup/tangled-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.