DepDigest

Digesting dependencies into clear, actionable insight.

Overview

DepDigest is a lightweight Python library for managing optional dependencies and lazy loading in large analytical or scientific projects.

It helps maintain a "Zero-Cost Startup" by ensuring that heavy external libraries are only checked and imported when actually needed.

Understand your dependencies. Trust your code.

Documentation

• User guide: docs/content/user/index.md
• Developer guide: docs/content/developers/index.md
• Contribution guide: CONTRIBUTING.md
• Implementation contract: standards/DEPDIGEST_GUIDE.md

Key Features

• @dep_digest Decorator: Enforce dependency availability at runtime with clear error messages.
• Lazy Loading: Discover and load modules (plugins, forms) from directories only when accessed.
• Architecture Validation: Tools to scan your codebase and ensure no top-level imports of soft dependencies leak into your core.
• Audit CLI: depdigest audit command for CI-friendly lazy-import checks.
• Symmetry with ArgDigest: Designed to work in tandem with argument validation frameworks.
• smonitor integration: Structured diagnostics for missing dependencies.
• Runtime config discovery: Automatically resolves package _depdigest.py.
• Manual config registration: Supports dynamic/testing contexts via register_package_config.

Quick Example

from depdigest import dep_digest, get_info

@dep_digest('openmm')
def simulate(system):
    import openmm
    # ...

def dependency_info():
    return get_info("my_package")

smonitor

DepDigest emits structured events when a dependency is missing. Configuration is loaded from _smonitor.py in the package root (depdigest/_smonitor.py), and the catalog lives in depdigest/_private/smonitor/catalog.py with metadata in depdigest/_private/smonitor/meta.py.

Installation

conda install -c uibcdf depdigest

Requirements

• Python >=3.11,<3.14
• Runtime dependency: smonitor

Development

Run tests:

pytest -q

Run tests with coverage:

pytest --cov=depdigest --cov-report=term-missing

Run architecture audit:

depdigest audit --src-root depdigest --soft-deps openmm,mdtraj

Build docs locally:

make -C docs html

License

MIT License.