Introduction to Methods of Execution

This lesson is part of the Automating Python Code Quality course.

In this lesson, we will provide,

an overview of the different ways we can execute our code quailty tools.

So far within this course we have triggered our tools using just the CLI. We will now look at the different ways we can execute and run our tools.

Overview of Methods

Within this section we will cover the following methods of execution:

Makefiles
pre-commit
GitHub Actions (CI).

Below is an overview of the different methods and their benefits.

Tool	Benefits	Trigger	Implemented
make	Removes the need to remember multiple commands. Allows commands (etc) to be shared across team members.	Manual	Locally
pre-commit	Removes the need to remember multiple commands. Automates the triggering of actions. Allows for commands (etc) to be shared across team members.	Git Commit	Locally
GitHub Actions (CI)	Removes the need to remember multiple commands. Automates the triggering of actions. Fail-safe if local checks have not been performed.	Pull request creation	Remote; CI server, for example GitHub.

It is worth mentioning that in many cases development teams will only use pre-commit and CI. However, personally, I like the ability to run tests and checks on an ad-hoc basis should I need to. Therefore, the scope of this course will cover both Make and pre-commit.

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