TODO Notifier

• TODO Notifier
  • Description
  • How to use it?
    • Method 1: As a pip package
    • Method 2: Directly cloning from GitHub
  • Accessing generated summaries
  • Technical Details
    • Working
    • Salient Features
  • Links
  • Changelog

Description

More often than not, we put some TODO items in code and forget about them. Sometimes, we think of coming back to a TODO item by some date but miss it being too busy with some other development.

TODO Notifier aims to solve this problem. It parses through any project, collects all the TODO items, generates automated summaries and sends automated reminders about them.

It's available on PyPi.

Let's first see TODO Notifier in action.

Recommended format to write TODO items**

TODO {2022-05-22} @user_name msg

The above format has the following components

• TODO in the capital (though users can make it case insensitive by setting the same in config.py). It need not be starting word of the line. For a host of valid examples, please check tests/sample_test_file.py and tests/sample_test_file2.py
• [Optional] TODO is followed by a date in YYYY-MM-DD format within curly brackets. The respective TODO item is expected to be completed by the end of this date
• [Optional] Date is followed by a unique user name accompanied by @
• [Optional] User name is followed by the usual message/comment of the respective TODO item

But, the relative position of the TODO item, date inside {} brackets, username with @ and message should be as recommended above.

The framework is robust. If the TODO item misses some data like date and/or message and/or username etc., the respective TODO item will still be picked up by the TODO Notifier. But, without relevant information, certain functionalities may not work. For e.g. without a date, it cannot know if the TODO item has overshot its expected date of completion.

How to use it?

Before running TODO Notifier, check out the sample summary files produced by the TODO Notifier in the directory sample_reports. It generates three default summaries. For more information, check out point #3 in Salient Features.

Method 1: As a pip package

Install TODO Notifier by running pip install todonotifier

Then you can use the below code to try the TODO Notifier.

from todonotifier.config import DefaultConfig
from todonotifier.connect import ConnectMethod, Connect
from todonotifier.driver import run as driver_run

git_url: str = ""  # Placeholder for HTTPS/SSH based git url. It could also be a local folder address
project_dir_name: str = ""  # Placeholder. Suggested to keep same as project name
sender_email = ""
password = ""
receivers = []
host = "smtp.gmail.com"  # Change accordingly
port = 465  # Change accordingly
notifier = EmailNotifier(sender_email, password, host, port, receivers)
config = DefaultConfig(save_html_reports=True, ignore_todo_case=True, notifier=notifier)  # Change flags as per need
connect = Connect(connect_method=ConnectMethod.GIT_CLONE, project_dir_name=project_dir_name, url=git_url, branch_name="production")  # If using a local folder address in `git_url`, then change `connect_method` to `ConnectMethod.DRY_RUN_DIR`

driver_run(connect=connect, config=config)

It will generate three files by default in folder .report under the current working directory.

Method 2: Directly cloning from GitHub

Clone using git clone https://github.com/ashu-tosh-kumar/todo_notifier.git

Then you can use the user_driver.py file to run it. You can edit the user_driver.py to following to try running it on tests/sample_test_file.py.

git_url: str = "tests/sample_test_file.py"  # Placeholder for HTTPS/SSH based git url
project_dir_name: str = ""  # Placeholder. Suggested to keep same as project name
sender_email = ""
password = ""
receivers = []
host = "smtp.gmail.com"
port = 465
notifier = EmailNotifier(sender_email, password, host, port, receivers)
config: BaseConfig = DefaultConfig(save_html_reports=True, ignore_todo_case=True, notifier=notifier)  # Change flags as per need
connect = Connect(connect_method=ConnectMethod.DRY_RUN_FILE, project_dir_name=project_dir_name, url=git_url, branch_name="production")  # If using a local folder address in `git_url`, then change `connect_method` to `ConnectMethod.DRY_RUN_DIR`. For `ConnectMethod.DRY_RUN_FILE` and `ConnectMethod.DRY_RUN_DIR`, branch_name is not important

driver_run(connect=connect, config=config)

It will generate three files by default in folder .report under the main project directory.

This method is not recommended and there's always a risk of overriding any local changes made when pulling the latest changes. Please use Method 1.

Accessing generated summaries

After running the above code to generate the summaries, the TODO Notifier stores these summaries as .html files if save_html_reports=True is passed in the configuration. All such reports are saved in the directory .report in the current working directory.

TODO Notifier also sends automated emails about the same if set up in the configuration.

But, if users need access to the generated summaries for some custom downstream integration, they can access the same as below:

# Access all the summary generators
config.config.summary_generators

# Access summary from (say) ByModuleSummaryGenerator
by_module_summary_generator = config.summary_generators[0]

# Check name of the respective summary generator
by_module_summary_generator.name

# Generated `list` of `TODO` objects
by_module_summary_generator.container

# Generated html summary of `TODO` objects
by_module_summary_generator.html

Technical Details

Working

• TODO Notifier copies/clones the respective repository into a temporary location to avoid the risk of modifying any file.
• It then reads through all the files in the project and collects all the TODO items.
• It then generates the summaries as specified in the configuration.
• Finally, it sends the notifications (only Email notifications are supported as of now) to the configured email id.

Salient Features

• Allows excluding specific folders of the project via absolute address, relative address or regular expression from being scanned. It has a default list of folders that are not scanned: DEFAULT_EXCLUDE_DIRS in constants.py. But the same can be controlled using the flag flag_default_exclude_dirs in config/DefaultConfig

• Allows excluding specific files of the project via absolute address, relative address or regular expression from being scanned. It has a default list of files that are not scanned: DEFAULT_EXCLUDE_FILES in constants.py. But the same can be controlled using the flag flag_default_exclude_files in config/DefaultConfig

• Provides three default summary generators. Summaries are how TODO Notifier shares information about TODO items. Each summary is an HTML document that can be shared. The default summary generation can be controlled by a flag: flag_default_summary_generators in config/DefaultConfig.

  • Module-wise list of all TODO items
  • User-wise list of TODO items expired already
  • User-wise list of TODO items that are supposed to expire in the upcoming week

• Flag save_html_reports can be used to control whether to save the generated summaries as files. If yes, it will store all generated summaries in folder .report locally

• Users can write their own summary generators and add pass the same in variable summary_generators in config/DefaultConfig. Each summary generator is a child of BaseSummaryGenerator in summary_generators.py

• Provides a default implementation of sending notifications via Email as EmailNotifier in notifications.py. More ways of notifications can be added by inheriting from BaseNotifier

• Most of the features are configurable via a configuration file. Configuration must be a child class of BaseConfig in config.py. It provides a default configuration class: DefaultConfig in config.py that can also be configured via various flag parameters. But users are free to write another configuration class or simply inherit from DefaultConfig

• Provides two ways of dry running the code locally viz. ConnectMethod.DRY_RUN_FILE to dry run on a single local file and CONNECT.DRY_RUN_DIR to dry run on an entire local directory/project.

• user_driver.py provides an example of how to use it. It can be modified accordingly to run the code.

Links

• Find the package on PyPi
• Read article on how to setup TODO Notifier on Medium
• Documentation on GitHub Pages.

Changelog

Unfortunately, didn't maintain this before v1.3.1.

1.3.1

• Release with all bug fixes. Please use minimum of 1.3.1. All previous release are yanked on PyPi.

1.3.2

• Move minimum python version supported from 3.7 to 3.9.
• Package upgrades.
• Move build from setup.py to poetry.

1.4.0

NOTE: It contains breaking change.

• Add captions in HTML generated for accessibility.
• Breaking Change: Rename CONNECT_METHOD in todonotifier.connect to ConnectMethod.
• Fix code smells per Sonarlint and Snyk.
• Package and security upgrades.