---
id: prospector
version: "1.19.1"
license: GPL-2.0-or-later
license_treatment: copyleft
maintenance: active
---

# prospector — Prospector is a tool to analyse Python code by aggregating the result of other tools.

License: copyleft · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 504.0K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Prospector is a Python code analysis aggregator that wraps multiple linting and complexity-checking tools into a single unified interface. Instead of configuring and running Pylint, pycodestyle, McCabe, and other checkers separately, you run prospector once and get consolidated output. It aims to be useful out of the box by providing sensible default profiles and automatically adapting its checks based on which libraries your project uses—for example, it knows about Django and Celery and adjusts its rules to avoid false positives from those frameworks.

The tool reads your project's dependencies, enables framework-specific plugins automatically, and lets you configure strictness levels and output formats (human-readable or JSON). You can customize behavior through YAML profiles, manually specify which libraries your code uses, or disable autodetection entirely. It's designed to reduce the friction of setting up code quality checks by handling tool orchestration and sensible defaults.

Use it for:

- Run a single command in CI/CD pipelines to check code quality across multiple dimensions without configuring each tool separately.
- Automatically adapt linting rules for Django or Celery projects to avoid framework-specific false positives.
- Integrate into pre-commit hooks to catch potential issues before commits.
- Generate JSON-formatted reports for automated parsing and integration into dashboards.
- Enforce configurable strictness levels to gradually tighten code quality standards across a project.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Prospector aggregates multiple Python static analysis tools—including Pylint, pycodestyle, McCabe, and others—into a single command-line interface with sensible defaults and framework-aware configuration.

Yes. Prospector is actively maintained, has low install friction, supports current Python versions, carries no known vulnerabilities, and solves a real problem—reducing the overhead of orchestrating multiple linting tools. The copyleft license (GPL-2.0-or-later) is the main consideration: acceptable for open-source projects, but proprietary teams should verify GPLv2 compatibility before adoption.

## Install

pip install prospector
uv add prospector
poetry add prospector

## Installing prospector

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel and 14 runtime dependencies. Actively maintained with a recent release 29 days ago and 2085 repository stars; supports Python 3.10 through 3.14.

License in practice: Licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later (copyleft). Any derivative work or distribution must comply with GPLv2 terms; proprietary projects should review compatibility before use.

Quickstart:

pip install prospector
cd /path/to/project
prospector

Requires Python 3.10 or later; optional tools must be installed separately via extras.

Verify before relying:

- Whether all 14 bundled tools are enabled by default or require explicit configuration.
- Performance characteristics when analyzing large codebases or typical runtime overhead.
- Compatibility of framework detection with current versions of Django and Celery.

## Package facts

- License: GPL-2.0-or-later (copyleft)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 504.0K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

python static code analysis, code quality checker, pylint wrapper aggregator, python linting tool, code complexity analysis, django-aware code analysis, python style checker, code-quality, static-analysis, linting

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