koaning.io

This blogpost originally appeared as a YouTube video here

I recently discovered TaskiPy, a tool that lets you define task automation directly in your pyproject.toml file—essentially turning it into a Makefile alternative.

I came across this while working on a PR for the Altair library, where their developer documentation instructs contributors to run commands using TaskiPy.

Basic Setup

TaskiPy works by adding a [tool.taskipy.tasks] section to your pyproject.toml:

[tool.taskipy.tasks]
lint = "ruff check ."
format = "black ."
print = "echo hello"

You can then list available tasks with:

task -l

And run them with:

task print
# Output: hello

Chaining Commands

You can chain multiple tasks together:

[tool.taskipy.tasks]
lint = "ruff check ."
format = "black ."
rough_check = "task lint && task format"

Variables

TaskiPy supports variables:

[tool.taskipy.variables]
name = "Vincent"

[tool.taskipy.tasks]
print = "echo Hello {name}"

task print
# Output: Hello Vincent

Pre and Post Hooks

You can define setup and teardown steps using pre_ and post_ prefixes:

[tool.taskipy.tasks]
print = "echo Hello Vincent"
pre_print = "echo something beforehand"
post_print = "echo something afterwards"

When you run task print, all three commands execute in order.

Note: If you pass extra arguments to a task (e.g., task print "echo some more"), the pre and post hooks are skipped, and your arguments are appended to the main command.

Use TaskiPy?

The main advantage is consolidation—you don't need separate Makefiles or Just files. This is particularly useful because:

• make isn't always available on Windows
• just isn't commonly pre-installed on Linux systems
• If someone is working on your Python project, they already have access to pyproject.toml

There are two notable downsides:

1. Multi-line commands can be awkward since TOML configuration leans toward one-liners
2. Bootstrap problem: While you eliminate the need for make or just to be pre-installed, you now require TaskiPy (or uv) to be installed first. TaskiPy cannot install itself, so it's not entirely a free lunch.

I was on Talk Python again.

We talked about the recent LLM course that I made for the TalkPython training website, but also got sidetracked to talk about ergonomic keyboards, the diskcache project and how to think about coding agents.

The recording will be live as a podcast episode in a few weeks but one of my favorite things about this recording is that I was able to use a new hardware setup. I now have an Elgato teleprompter which can function as a second screen, which means that during an interview I can actually look at the camera while talking. You can see a bit of glare appear once Michael puts on something with a white background on display but it's still a nice boost of an experience.

If you're looking for background music for doing concentrated work like programming look for video game soundtracks. They're amazing!

My recent favorite in this realm is the soundtrack from slipways. It's a neat calm game and the music really adds to the atmosphere.

You can find the original soundtrack on YouTube, but I can also recommend checking out this bandcamp site for a better listening experience without ads. You can also pay the creator this way, which is a nice thing to do.