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# pyproject.toml

_Black_ is able to read project-specific default values for its command line options
from a `pyproject.toml` file. This is especially useful for specifying custom
`--include` and `--exclude` patterns for your project.

**Pro-tip**: If you're asking yourself "Do I need to configure anything?" the answer is
"No". _Black_ is all about sensible defaults.

## What on Earth is a `pyproject.toml` file?

[PEP 518](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0518/) defines `pyproject.toml` as a
configuration file to store build system requirements for Python projects. With the help
of tools like [Poetry](https://python-poetry.org/) or
[Flit](https://flit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) it can fully replace the need for
`setup.py` and `setup.cfg` files.

## Where _Black_ looks for the file

By default _Black_ looks for `pyproject.toml` starting from the common base directory of
all files and directories passed on the command line. If it's not there, it looks in
parent directories. It stops looking when it finds the file, or a `.git` directory, or a
`.hg` directory, or the root of the file system, whichever comes first.

If you're formatting standard input, _Black_ will look for configuration starting from
the current working directory.

You can also explicitly specify the path to a particular file that you want with
`--config`. In this situation _Black_ will not look for any other file.

If you're running with `--verbose`, you will see a blue message if a file was found and
used.

Please note `blackd` will not use `pyproject.toml` configuration.

## Configuration format

As the file extension suggests, `pyproject.toml` is a
[TOML](https://github.com/toml-lang/toml) file. It contains separate sections for
different tools. _Black_ is using the `[tool.black]` section. The option keys are the
same as long names of options on the command line.

Note that you have to use single-quoted strings in TOML for regular expressions. It's
the equivalent of r-strings in Python. Multiline strings are treated as verbose regular
expressions by Black. Use `[ ]` to denote a significant space character.

<details>
<summary>Example `pyproject.toml`</summary>

```toml
[tool.black]
line-length = 88
target-version = ['py37']
include = '\.pyi?$'
exclude = '''

(
  /(
      \.eggs         # exclude a few common directories in the
    | \.git          # root of the project
    | \.hg
    | \.mypy_cache
    | \.tox
    | \.venv
    | _build
    | buck-out
    | build
    | dist
  )/
  | foo.py           # also separately exclude a file named foo.py in
                     # the root of the project
)
'''
```

</details>

## Lookup hierarchy

Command-line options have defaults that you can see in `--help`. A `pyproject.toml` can
override those defaults. Finally, options provided by the user on the command line
override both.

_Black_ will only ever use one `pyproject.toml` file during an entire run. It doesn't
look for multiple files, and doesn't compose configuration from different levels of the
file hierarchy.