---
id: pyspelling
version: "2.12.1"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: aging
---

# pyspelling — Spell checker.

License: permissive · Maintenance: aging · Downloads: 166.9K/mo

## What it is and what it does

PySpelling is a Python wrapper around the Aspell and Hunspell command-line spell checkers, designed to automate spell checking across different file types in a project. It lets you define multiple spelling tasks, each with its own filters and options, so you can apply different rules to Python docstrings, HTML, Markdown, and other formats. The package works around limitations in Aspell and Hunspell's built-in filters by providing more granular control—for example, you can exclude specific HTML elements by ID or class name, or skip particular content within docstrings.

PySpelling integrates with CI/CD pipelines to fail builds when misspellings are detected, making it useful for maintaining code quality in automated workflows. It depends on parsing libraries like BeautifulSoup4, lxml, and Markdown to handle different file formats, and uses wcmatch for pattern matching. The package is production-stable, supports Python 3.9 through 3.14, and carries no known security vulnerabilities.

Use it for:

- Enforce consistent spelling in documentation and docstrings across a Python project as part of CI/CD.
- Filter out code identifiers and technical terms from spell checking while validating natural-language comments.
- Scan HTML or Markdown files while ignoring specific tags or sections that shouldn't be spell-checked.
- Automate spell checking for multiple file types (Python, Markdown, HTML, YAML) with different rules per type.
- Catch misspellings in generated or templated content before deployment.

## Worth the install?

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

PySpelling wraps Aspell or Hunspell to automate spell checking across project files with customizable filters and task-based configuration, and can fail builds in CI when misspellings are found.

Yes, if you need automated spell checking in CI and are willing to install Aspell or Hunspell separately. The package is stable, permissively licensed, and has low install friction. The aging maintenance status (261 days since last release) is not a blocker for a mature tool, but verify that Aspell/Hunspell setup fits your deployment model before committing.

## Install

pip install pyspelling
uv add pyspelling
poetry add pyspelling

## Installing pyspelling

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure Python wheel and seven runtime dependencies (beautifulsoup4, html5lib, lxml, markdown, pyyaml, soupsieve, wcmatch). Maintenance status is aging—last release was 261 days ago—but the repository remains active with recent commits and no archived status.

License in practice: MIT license (permissive) means you can use, modify, and distribute PySpelling with minimal restrictions, making it safe for both open-source and commercial projects.

Quickstart:

pip install pyspelling

Create a .spellcheckignore or config file, then run:
pyspelling check

Requires Aspell or Hunspell to be installed on your system as external command-line tools; PySpelling is a wrapper around them, not a standalone spell checker.

Verify before relying:

- Whether Aspell or Hunspell installation is automatic or requires manual setup on each platform.
- Specific filter types and extensibility mechanisms beyond the description's mention of custom Python filters.
- Performance characteristics when scanning large projects or many file types.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: aging
- Downloads: 166.9K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

spell checker automation, aspell hunspell wrapper, ci spell checking, project-wide spell check, configurable spell checking, spell check filters, build spell validation, spell-checking, ci-integration, code-quality

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/pyspelling) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/pyspelling/)