Define tasks in Python. Run only what changed.

A task management & automation tool like make, but in pure Python. Tracks file dependencies, caches results, and skips tasks that are already up-to-date.

python logo 
pip install doit

Often compared to make, just, invoke, and snakemake — but with DAG execution and incremental builds built in.

A game developer uses doit to

  • Automate all project related tasks (code generation, cross-compilation, resource generation)
  • Simplify cumbersome command line calls
  • Optimize processing time by skipping tasks already done

A bioinformatics developer uses doit to

  • Create a reproduceable computational pipeline
  • Manage a complex workflow (set of depending tasks)
  • Optimize processing time by skipping tasks already done

Nikola, a static site generator, uses doit to

  • Provide the command line interface
  • Speed up by parallel task execution
  • Optimize processing time by skipping tasks already done
View all use-cases

Quick Example

Create a dodo.py — tasks are plain Python dicts.

def task_hello():
    """create a greeting file"""
    return {
        'actions': ['echo "Hello from doit" > hello.txt'],
        'targets': ['hello.txt'],
        'clean': True,
    }

def task_shout():
    """convert greeting to uppercase"""
    return {
        'actions': ['tr a-z A-Z < hello.txt > shout.txt'],
        'file_dep': ['hello.txt'],
        'targets': ['shout.txt'],
        'clean': True,
    }

$ pip install doit
$ doit
.  hello
.  shout
$ doit            # nothing to do - already up-to-date
-- hello
-- shout
$ doit clean      # remove generated files
$ doit            # runs again
.  hello
.  shout


Python-Native Task Runner

No DSL, no YAML — tasks are plain Python dicts and functions.

Pure Python

Tasks are Python dicts. Use any library, generate tasks programmatically, debug with pdb.

Shell or Python actions

Run shell commands, call Python functions, or mix both in a single task.

Self-documenting

doit list shows all tasks with docstrings. doit help <task> for details.


Incremental Builds & Pipelines

DAG execution with dependency tracking — run only what changed.

Incremental builds

Tracks file dependencies and targets (MD5 or timestamp). Skips tasks that are already up-to-date.

Flexible up-to-date checks

Not limited to file timestamps. Computed dependencies (calc_dep), custom checkers, and result-based checks.

Pipelines

Pass results between tasks without intermediate files. Dynamic task creation via yield for complex workflows.


Advanced Features

Extensible

Plugin architecture — custom commands, storage backends, task loaders, and output reporters

Framework API — build your own tools on top of doit

Batteries included

Parallel execution — threaded or multi-process

Auto execution — watch for file changes and re-run tasks [linux/mac]

Shell tab-completion — bash and zsh

DAG visualisation — graphviz integration

Testimonials

  • Congratulations! Your tool follows the KISS principle very closely. I always wondered why build tools had to be that complicated.

    Elena

    source

  • Let me start by saying I'm really lovin doit, at first the interface seemed verbose but quickly changed my mind when I started using it and realized the flexibility. Many thanks for the great software!

    Michael Gliwinski

    source

  • I love all the traditional unix power tools, like cron, make, perl, ..., I also like new comprehensive configuration management tools like CFEngine and Puppet. But I find doit to be so versatile and so productive.

    Charlie Guo

    source

  • I needed a sort of make tool to glue things together and after trying out all kinds, doit ... has actually turned out to be beautiful. Its easy to add and manage tasks, even complex ones-- gluing things together with decorators and 'library' functions I've written to do certain similar things.

    Matthew

    source

  • I went back and forth on different Pythonic build tools for awhile. Scons is pretty great if you're doing 'standard' sorts of builds, but I found it a little heavy for my tastes and really hard to customize to my tool flow (in FPGA land, there are all kinds of nonstandard vendor tools that all need to play together). I've been using doit more and more over the past few months, and I'm continually impressed by the tool (aside from the goofy name). It works amazingly well for automating tricky/exotic build processes. Check it out!

    SkOink

    source

  • Some time ago, I grew frustrated with Make and Ant and started porting my build files to every build tool I found (SCons, Waf, etc.). Each time, as soon as I stepped out of already available rules, I ran into some difficult to overcome stumbling blocks. Then I discovered this little gem of simplicity: doit. It's Python-based. It doesn't try to be smart, it does not try to be cool, it just works. If you are looking for a flexible little build tool for different languages and tasks, give it a chance. (...)

    lelele

    source

Status

doit is a mature project actively maintained since 2008. Current version: 0.37.0.

doit runs on Python 3.10+. 99% unit-test code coverage.

Contributions are welcome. Development is driven by real-world use cases.

Project Details

LICENSE
This is an open-source project (MIT license) written in python.
DOWNLOAD
from PyPi
SUPPORT
See support page
DEVELOP
Project management (bug tracker, feature requests and source code ) on github
WEBSITE
This web site is hosted on http://pages.github.com
Powered by Universal template and Sphinx.