style-guide

name	style-guide
description	Dedalus style guide quick reference. Key rules for writing code that lasts. Use when writing or reviewing Python code.
disable-model-invocation	true

Dedalus Style Guide: Quick Reference

Hard Limits

• Functions: 70 lines max
• Files: 500 lines max (excluding inline tests)
• Nesting: 3 levels max
• Arguments: 5 max (excluding self/cls)
• PRs: 200 changed LOC max

I/O Convention

# I/O function: io: Io as first parameter
async def fetch_user(io: Io, user_id: str) -> User | None: ...

# Pure function: no io parameter
def compute_discount(user: User, cart: Cart) -> Decimal: ...

Types

• No Any. Period. If you reach for Any, you have not modeled the domain.
• No object as a type annotation. It is Any in disguise.
• For heterogeneous JSON, use JSONValue, JSONObject, JSONPrimitive, or JSONArray from core.types.json. These are proper recursive RFC 8259 types. There is no excuse for dict[str, object] or dict[str, Any].
• No **kwargs: Any without justification.
• Use typed structures (dataclass, TypedDict, Pydantic) instead of dicts.
• Pydantic at boundaries, plain types internally.
• Replace anonymous tuples with frozen dataclasses or named types.

Functions

• Early returns instead of nesting
• One thing per function: if you need "and", split it
• Named parameters at call sites: fetch_user(io=io, user_id=uid)
• Return value in own variable for debuggability: result = ...; return result
• No chaining construction + method: Foo(x).bar() hides the instance. Split into foo = Foo(x) then result = foo.bar().
• Split compound assertions: assert a; assert b not assert a and b

Error Handling

• Specific exceptions with domain context: ChargeError(org_id, reason)
• Never catch bare Exception without # noqa: BLE001
• Never swallow with pass
• Namespace pattern: BillingError.ChargeError
• Result types for domain logic, try/except at boundaries

No Fallbacks

# Bad: silent, undebuggable
model = request.model or config.default_model or "gpt-4"

# Good: explicit precedence with early returns
def get_model(request, config):
    if request.model:
        return request.model
    if config.default_model:
        return config.default_model
    raise ValueError("model is required")

Naming

• No abbreviations: get_user_by_id not get_usr
• Units last: timeout_ms, latency_ms_p99
• Terse locals for mechanical: res, ret, cfg, ctx
• Descriptive for domain: user, balance, org_id
• Loop variables: full singular form. for field in fields, not for f in fields. Applies in comprehensions too: {field.name: field for field in fields}.

Docstrings (Google style)

async def fetch_user(io: Io, user_id: str) -> User | None:
    """Fetch user from database by ID.

    The returned User is a snapshot; mutations won't persist.

    Args:
        io: I/O capability handle.
        user_id: The unique identifier for the user.

    Returns:
        The User object if found, None otherwise.

    """

• Imperative mood: "Fetch", not "Fetches"
• Args section if function takes parameters
• Returns section always (even for None)
• Blank line before closing """
• Full sentences with periods. No dashes or sentence fragments.

Comments

• Explain WHY, not WHAT
• Delete narration: user = get_user(id) # Get the user → delete the comment
• Document trade-offs and policy choices
• Section headers: single-line # --- Label --- (no multi-line box separators)
• Column-align inline field comments with # fmt: off / # fmt: on (see column-aligned-fields skill for detailed rules)

Module Organization

• __init__.py: bare docstring only. No imports, no re-exports, no __all__.
• No __all__ in implementation files either. Public API is communicated by naming convention (public vs _-prefixed). We never use import *.
• One class per stage file. Class absorbs all logic (not a thin wrapper).
• Prefer public methods. Only _-prefix true internals callers never need.
• Types (dataclasses, aliases) in types.py. Logic in the main module.
• No backward-compat shims, convenience wrappers, or _default_instance patterns.
• Use functools.cache for expensive I/O loads, not manual ClassVar[dict] caches. Don't import cross-package deps for simple stdlib needs.

Constants

• Use Enum or frozen dataclass, not raw dicts/lists
• Numeric literals > 999 need underscores: 100_000 not 100000
• Powers of 2 are exempt: 4096 is fine

Testing (Inline)

# --- Tests ---

from inline_tests import test  # noqa: E402


@test
async def rejects_empty_id():
    import pytest  # noqa: PLC0415

    with pytest.raises(ValueError):
        await fetch_user("")

• Colocated with implementation
• Local imports with # noqa: PLC0415
• One test = one scenario
• Unit tests (synthetic data) inline, integration tests (real files) in tests/
• Tests verify behavioral contracts, not implementation details or Python builtins
• Run: uv run pytest path/to/file.py --inline-tests -v

Before Committing

• uv run ruff format <files>
• uv run ruff check <files> --fix
• Each file <= 500 production lines
• Each function <= 70 lines
• No Any without justification
• No __all__ in any implementation file