Excluding code from coverage.py

You may have code in your project that you know won’t be executed, and you want to tell coverage.py to ignore it. For example, you may have debugging-only code that won’t be executed during your unit tests. You can tell coverage.py to exclude this code during reporting so that it doesn’t clutter your reports with noise about code that you don’t need to hear about.

Coverage.py will look for comments marking clauses for exclusion. In this code, the “if debug” clause is excluded from reporting:

a = my_function1()
if debug:  # pragma: no cover
    msg = "blah blah"
    log_message(msg, a)
b = my_function2()

Any line with a comment of “pragma: no cover” is excluded. If that line introduces a clause, for example, an if clause, or a function or class definition, then the entire clause is also excluded. Here the __repr__ function is not reported as missing:

class MyObject(object):
    def __init__(self):
        blah1()
        blah2()

    def __repr__(self):  # pragma: no cover
        return "<MyObject>"

Excluded code is executed as usual, and its execution is recorded in the coverage data as usual. When producing reports though, coverage.py excludes it from the list of missing code.

Branch coverage

When measuring branch coverage, a conditional will not be counted as a branch if one of its choices is excluded:

def only_one_choice(x):
    if x:
        blah1()
        blah2()
    else:  # pragma: no cover
        # x is always true.
        blah3()

Because the else clause is excluded, the if only has one possible next line, so it isn’t considered a branch at all.

Advanced exclusion

Coverage.py identifies exclusions by matching lines against a list of regular expressions. Using configuration files or the coverage API, you can add to that list. This is useful if you have often-used constructs to exclude that can be matched with a regex. You can exclude them all at once without littering your code with exclusion pragmas.

If the matched line introduces a block, the entire block is excluded from reporting. Matching a def line or decorator line will exclude an entire function.

For example, you might decide that __repr__ functions are usually only used in debugging code, and are uninteresting to test themselves. You could exclude all of them by adding a regex to the exclusion list:

  • .coveragerc
  • pyproject.toml
  • setup.cfg, tox.ini
[report]
exclude_also =
    def __repr__
[tool.coverage.report]
exclude_also = [
    "def __repr__",
    ]
[coverage:report]
exclude_also =
    def __repr__

For example, here’s a list of exclusions I’ve used:

  • .coveragerc
  • pyproject.toml
  • setup.cfg, tox.ini
[report]
exclude_also =
    def __repr__
    if self.debug:
    if settings.DEBUG
    raise AssertionError
    raise NotImplementedError
    if 0:
    if __name__ == .__main__.:
    if TYPE_CHECKING:
    class .*\bProtocol\):
    @(abc\.)?abstractmethod
[tool.coverage.report]
exclude_also = [
    "def __repr__",
    "if self.debug:",
    "if settings.DEBUG",
    "raise AssertionError",
    "raise NotImplementedError",
    "if 0:",
    "if __name__ == .__main__.:",
    "if TYPE_CHECKING:",
    "class .*\\bProtocol\\):",
    "@(abc\\.)?abstractmethod",
    ]
[coverage:report]
exclude_also =
    def __repr__
    if self.debug:
    if settings.DEBUG
    raise AssertionError
    raise NotImplementedError
    if 0:
    if __name__ == .__main__.:
    if TYPE_CHECKING:
    class .*\bProtocol\):
    @(abc\.)?abstractmethod

The [report] exclude_also option adds regexes to the built-in default list so that you can add your own exclusions. The older [report] exclude_lines option completely overwrites the list of regexes.

The regexes only have to match part of a line. Be careful not to over-match. A value of ... will match any line with more than three characters in it.

A similar pragma, “no branch”, can be used to tailor branch coverage measurement. See Branch coverage measurement for details.

Excluding source files

See Specifying source files for ways to limit what files coverage.py measures or reports on.