Invoke is a Python (2.7 and 3.4+) task execution tool & library, drawing inspiration from various sources to arrive at a powerful & clean feature set.

• Like Ruby's Rake tool and Invoke's own predecessor Fabric 1.x, it provides a clean, high level API for running shell commands and defining/organizing task functions from a tasks.py file:

  from invoke import task
  
  @task
  def clean(c, docs=False, bytecode=False, extra=''):
      patterns = ['build']
      if docs:
          patterns.append('docs/_build')
      if bytecode:
          patterns.append('**/*.pyc')
      if extra:
          patterns.append(extra)
      for pattern in patterns:
          c.run("rm -rf {}".format(pattern))
  
  @task
  def build(c, docs=False):
      c.run("python setup.py build")
      if docs:
          c.run("sphinx-build docs docs/_build")

• From GNU Make, it inherits an emphasis on minimal boilerplate for common patterns and the ability to run multiple tasks in a single invocation:

  $ invoke clean build

• Where Fabric 1.x considered the command-line approach the default mode of use, Invoke (and tools built on it) are equally at home embedded in your own Python code or a REPL:

  blurb

  fakeout = """ Hello, this is pip Installing is fun Fake output is fake Successfully installed invocations-0.13.0 pep8-1.5.7 spec-1.3.1 """ proc = MockSubprocess(out=fakeout, exit=0)

  blurb

  proc.stop()

  blurb

  >>> from invoke import run >>> cmd = "pip install -r requirements.txt" >>> result = run(cmd, hide=True, warn=True) >>> print(result.ok) True >>> print(result.stdout.splitlines()[-1]) Successfully installed invocations-0.13.0 pep8-1.5.7 spec-1.3.1

• Following the lead of most Unix CLI applications, it offers a traditional flag-based style of command-line parsing, deriving flag names and value types from task signatures (optionally, of course!):

  $ invoke clean --docs --bytecode build --docs --extra='**/*.pyo'
  $ invoke clean -d -b build --docs -e '**/*.pyo'
  $ invoke clean -db build -de '**/*.pyo'

• Like many of its predecessors, it offers advanced features as well --namespacing, task aliasing, before/after hooks, parallel execution and more.

For documentation, including detailed installation information, please see http://pyinvoke.org. Post-install usage information may be found in invoke --help.

You can install the development version via pip install -e git+https://github.com/pyinvoke/invoke#egg=invoke.