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missing-init

Part of: Coverage Check
Check coverage
Category required
Applies to directories
Since v1.0.0

Directory in source tree lacks init.py file

What it detects

This rule flags directories in your source tree that contain Python files but lack an __init__.py file.

Why is this a problem?

Without an __init__.py, the directory is not recognized as a Python package by documentation generators like mkdocstrings. All Python files in that directory become invisible to your docs site — they won't appear in auto-generated API documentation, even though they may be importable at runtime via implicit namespace packages.

Example

# Directory structure:
# src/myapp/helpers/
#   ├── parsing.py
#   ├── validation.py
#   └── (no __init__.py)
#
# mkdocstrings cannot discover helpers.parsing
# or helpers.validation for API docs.

# Add __init__.py to the directory:
# src/myapp/helpers/
#   ├── __init__.py
#   ├── parsing.py
#   └── validation.py

# src/myapp/helpers/__init__.py
"""Helper utilities for the myapp package."""