🎰 Slotscheck
May 29, 2026 · View on GitHub
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Adding __slots__ to a class in Python is a great way to improve performance.
But to work properly, all base classes need to implement it — without overlap!
It's easy to get wrong, and what's worse: there is nothing warning you that you messed up.
✨ Until now! ✨
slotscheck helps you validate your slots are working properly.
You can even use it to enforce the use of slots across (parts of) your codebase.
See my talk at EuroPython <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87DoVbgtuRA>_
for the details of how slots work and what can go wrong with them.
Quickstart
Usage is quick from the command line:
.. code-block:: bash
python -m slotscheck [FILES]...
or
slotscheck -m [MODULES]...
For example:
.. code-block:: bash
$ slotscheck -m sanic ERROR: 'sanic.app:Sanic' defines overlapping slots. ERROR: 'sanic.response:HTTPResponse' has slots but superclass does not. Oh no, found some problems! Scanned 72 module(s), 111 class(es).
Now get to fixing —
and add slotscheck to your CI pipeline or
pre-commit <https://slotscheck.rtfd.io/en/latest/advanced.html#pre-commit-hook>_
to prevent mistakes from creeping in again!
See here <https://github.com/Instagram/LibCST/pull/615>__ and
here <https://github.com/dry-python/returns/pull/1233>__ for examples.
Features
- Detect broken slots inheritance
- Detect overlapping slots
- Detect duplicate slots
Pre-commit <https://slotscheck.rtfd.io/en/latest/advanced.html#pre-commit-hook>_ hook- (Optionally) enforce the use of slots
See the documentation <https://slotscheck.rtfd.io>_ for more details
and configuration options.
Why not a flake8 plugin?
Flake8 plugins need to work without running the code. Many libraries use conditional imports, star imports, re-exports, and define slots with decorators or metaclasses. This all but requires running the code to determine the slots and class tree.
There's an issue <https://github.com/ariebovenberg/slotscheck/issues/6>_
to discuss the matter.
Notes
-
slotscheckdoes not work on alternative Python implementations such as PyPy, Jython, or IronPython. This is for two reasons:- Other implementations such as PyPy handle slots differently, and running slotscheck wouldn't be useful.
- To perform its checks,
slotscheckuses CPython-specific features
-
slotscheckwill try to import all submodules of the given package. If there are scripts withoutif __name__ == "__main__":blocks, they may be executed. -
Even in the case that slots are not inherited properly, there may still be an advantage to using them (i.e. attribute access speed and some memory savings). However, in most cases this is unintentional.
slotscheckallows you to ignore specific cases. -
Because
slotscheckimports your code in arbitrary order, it can—in rare cases—result in confusing and randomly-occurring import errors in third-party libraries. In such a case, it is recommended to omit modules such as your tests and mypy plugins from the slotscheck run. Seehere <https://github.com/ariebovenberg/slotscheck/issues/178>. Alternatively, you can usePYTHONHASHSEED=<any value>to make the import order deterministic. A solution to this problem is being worked on inthis issue <https://github.com/ariebovenberg/slotscheck/issues/270>.
Installation
It's available on PyPI.
.. code-block:: bash
pip install slotscheck