Error / Violation Codes

Flake8 and its plugins assign a code to each message that we refer to as an error code (or violation). Most plugins will list their error codes in their documentation or README.

Flake8 installs pycodestyle, pyflakes, and mccabe by default and generates its own error codes for pyflakes:

Code

Example Message

F401

module imported but unused

F402

import module from line N shadowed by loop variable

F403

‘from module import *’ used; unable to detect undefined names

F404

future import(s) name after other statements

F405

name may be undefined, or defined from star imports: module

F406

‘from module import *’ only allowed at module level

F407

an undefined __future__ feature name was imported

F501

invalid % format literal

F502

% format expected mapping but got sequence

F503

% format expected sequence but got mapping

F504

% format unused named arguments

F505

% format missing named arguments

F506

% format mixed positional and named arguments

F507

% format mismatch of placeholder and argument count

F508

% format with * specifier requires a sequence

F509

% format with unsupported format character

F521

.format(...) invalid format string

F522

.format(...) unused named arguments

F523

.format(...) unused positional arguments

F524

.format(...) missing argument

F525

.format(...) mixing automatic and manual numbering

F541

f-string without any placeholders

F601

dictionary key name repeated with different values

F602

dictionary key variable name repeated with different values

F621

too many expressions in an assignment with star-unpacking

F622

two or more starred expressions in an assignment (a, *b, *c = d)

F631

assertion test is a tuple, which is always True

F632

use ==/!= to compare str, bytes, and int literals

F633

use of >> is invalid with print function

F634

if test is a tuple, which is always True

F701

a break statement outside of a while or for loop

F702

a continue statement outside of a while or for loop

F704

a yield or yield from statement outside of a function

F706

a return statement outside of a function/method

F707

an except: block as not the last exception handler

F721

syntax error in doctest

F722

syntax error in forward annotation

F723

syntax error in type comment

F811

redefinition of unused name from line N

F821

undefined name name

F822

undefined name name in __all__

F823

local variable name … referenced before assignment

F831

duplicate argument name in function definition

F841

local variable name is assigned to but never used

F901

raise NotImplemented should be raise NotImplementedError

We also report one extra error: E999. We report E999 when we fail to compile a file into an Abstract Syntax Tree for the plugins that require it.

mccabe only ever reports one violation - C901 based on the complexity value provided by the user.

Users should also reference pycodestyle’s list of error codes.