vulture
Find dead code
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. Vulture is a mature, actively maintained tool with no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and permissive MIT licensing. It fills a genuine need in code quality workflows—static analysis alone cannot catch all dead code due to Python's dynamic nature, but Vulture's confidence scoring and false-positive suppression mechanisms make it practical for real projects.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Low friction install with a single lightweight dependency (tomli).
- The project is actively maintained with recent releases and supports Python 3.9 through 3.14.
License · maintenance · safety
permissive license (permissive) — MIT license permits unrestricted use, modification, and distribution with minimal obligations—suitable for both open-source and commercial projects.
last release 2026-03-25 (142 days) · last repo commit 2026-04-30 · 4,767 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 11,204,416 downloads/mo, #1,410 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install vulture
vulture myscript.py
vulture myscript.py --min-confidence 100- Accuracy of confidence scoring for different code types and whether 60–100% ranges hold across diverse codebases
- Performance characteristics on very large codebases and whether static analysis speed scales linearly
What it is and what it does
Vulture performs static analysis on Python source code to identify unused functions, classes, methods, variables, imports, and unreachable code blocks. It assigns confidence scores (60–100%) to each finding to indicate how certain it is that the code is genuinely dead, helping developers distinguish between high-confidence dead code and potential false positives that may result from Python's dynamic nature.
The tool is designed for code cleanup and quality improvement in large codebases. It can be run as a command-line tool on individual files or entire directories, integrated into pre-commit hooks, or used programmatically via its Python API. Configuration is supported through pyproject.toml, and false positives can be managed through whitelists, exclusion patterns, decorator ignoring, and name-matching rules.
Use it for
- Clean up large codebases by identifying and removing unused functions and classes that accumulate over time
- Find untested code by running Vulture on both library and test suite to detect code paths not covered by tests
- Detect unreachable code blocks and dead imports that may indicate logic errors or incomplete refactoring
- Integrate into CI/CD pipelines via pre-commit hooks to prevent dead code from being committed to repositories
- Suppress known false positives in dynamic code using whitelists and configuration rules
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
Vulture is a mature, actively maintained tool with no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and permissive MIT licensing. It fills a genuine need in code quality workflows—static analysis alone cannot catch all dead code due to Python's dynamic nature, but Vulture's confidence scoring and false-positive suppression mechanisms make it practical for real projects.
Install
vulture on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction install with a single lightweight dependency (tomli). The project is actively maintained with recent releases and supports Python 3.9 through 3.14.
License in practice
MIT license permits unrestricted use, modification, and distribution with minimal obligations—suitable for both open-source and commercial projects.
Quickstart
pip install vulture
vulture myscript.py
vulture myscript.py --min-confidence 100Verify before relying
- Accuracy of confidence scoring for different code types and whether 60–100% ranges hold across diverse codebases
- Performance characteristics on very large codebases and whether static analysis speed scales linearly
Package facts
| License | permissive license permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.9 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 1 packagetomli |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 142 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 11,204,416 / month, #1,410 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableEnvironment :: ConsoleIntended Audience :: DevelopersLicense :: OSI Approved :: MIT LicenseProgramming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: CPythonProgramming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: PyPyTopic :: Software Development :: Quality Assurance |
Evidence: vulture-2.16-py3-none-any.whl
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See also deadcode · uncalled · refurb · eradicate · flake8-eradicate · pytest-deadfixtures · autoflake · pytest-unused-fixtures · flake8-unused-arguments · yesqa