GitHub - pre-commit/identify: File identification library for Python · GitHub Skip to content Navigation Menu Sign in Appearance settings * Platform * AI CODE CREATION * GitHub Copilot Write better code with AI * GitHub Copilot app Direct agents from issue to merge * MCP Registry Integrate external tools * DEVELOPER WORKFLOWS * Actions Automate any workflow * Codespaces Instant dev environments * Issues Plan and track work * Code Review Manage code changes * Code Quality Enforce quality at merge * APPLICATION SECURITY * GitHub Advanced Security Find and fix vulnerabilities * Code security Secure your code as you build * Secret protection Stop leaks before they start * EXPLORE * Why GitHub * Documentation * Blog * Changelog * Marketplace View all features * Solutions * BY COMPANY SIZE * Enterprises * Small and medium teams * Startups * Nonprofits * BY USE CASE * App Modernization * DevSecOps * DevOps * CI/CD * View all use cases * BY INDUSTRY * Healthcare * Financial services * Manufacturing * Government * View all industries View all solutions * Resources * EXPLORE BY TOPIC * AI * Software Development * DevOps * Security * View all topics * EXPLORE BY TYPE * Customer stories * Events & webinars * Ebooks & reports * Business insights * GitHub Skills * SUPPORT & SERVICES * Documentation * Customer support * Community forum * Trust center * Partners View all resources * Open Source * COMMUNITY * GitHub Sponsors Fund open source developers * PROGRAMS * Security Lab * Maintainer Community * GitHub Stars * Archive Program * REPOSITORIES * Topics * Trending * Collections * Enterprise * ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS * Enterprise platform AI-powered developer platform * AVAILABLE ADD-ONS * GitHub Advanced Security Enterprise-grade security features * Copilot for Business Enterprise-grade AI features * Premium Support Enterprise-grade 24/7 support * Pricing Search / Sign in Sign up Appearance settings You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session. You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session. You switched accounts on another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session. Dismiss alert Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page . pre-commit / identify Public * Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page . * Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings * Fork 179 * Star 297 * Code * Issues 3 * Pull requests 8 * Actions * Security and quality 0 * Insights Additional navigation options * Code * Issues * Pull requests * Actions * Security and quality * Insights main Branches Tags Go to file Code Open more actions menu Latest commit   History 1,069 Commits 1,069 Commits Folders and files Name Name Last commit message Last commit date .github/ workflows .github/ workflows     bin bin     identify identify     tests tests     .activate.sh .activate.sh     .deactivate.sh .deactivate.sh     .gitignore .gitignore     .pre-commit-config.yaml .pre-commit-config.yaml     LICENSE LICENSE     README.md README.md     requirements-dev.txt requirements-dev.txt     setup.cfg setup.cfg     setup.py setup.py     tox.ini tox.ini     View all files Repository files navigation * * README * MIT license * Security More items identify File identification library for Python. Given a file (or some information about a file), return a set of standardized tags identifying what the file is. Installation pip install identify Usage With a file on disk If you have an actual file on disk, you can get the most information possible (a superset of all other methods): > >> from identify import identify > >> identify . tags_from_path ( '/path/to/file.py' ) { 'file' , 'text' , 'python' , 'non-executable' } > >> identify . tags_from_path ( '/path/to/file-with-shebang' ) { 'file' , 'text' , 'shell' , 'bash' , 'executable' } > >> identify . tags_from_path ( '/bin/bash' ) { 'file' , 'binary' , 'executable' } > >> identify . tags_from_path ( '/path/to/directory' ) { 'directory' } > >> identify . tags_from_path ( '/path/to/symlink' ) { 'symlink' } When using a file on disk, the checks performed are: * File type (file, symlink, directory, socket) * Mode (is it executable?) * File name (mostly based on extension) * If executable, the shebang is read and the interpreter interpreted If you only have the filename > >> identify . tags_from_filename ( 'file.py' ) { 'text' , 'python' } If you only have the interpreter > >> identify . tags_from_interpreter ( 'python3.5' ) { 'python' , 'python3' } > >> identify . tags_from_interpreter ( 'bash' ) { 'shell' , 'bash' } > >> identify . tags_from_interpreter ( 'some-unrecognized-thing' ) set () As a cli $ identify-cli --help usage: identify-cli [-h] [--filename-only] path positional arguments: path optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --filename-only $ identify-cli setup.py ; echo $? ["file", "non-executable", "python", "text"] 0 $ identify-cli setup.py --filename-only ; echo $? ["python", "text"] 0 $ identify-cli wat.wat ; echo $? wat.wat does not exist. 1 $ identify-cli wat.wat --filename-only ; echo $? 1 Identifying LICENSE files identify also has an api for determining what type of license is contained in a file. This routine is roughly based on the approaches used by licensee (the ruby gem that github uses to figure out the license for a repo). The approach that identify uses is as follows: * Strip the copyright line * Normalize all whitespace * Return any exact matches * Return the closest by edit distance (where edit distance < 5%) To use the api, install via pip install identify[license] >>> from identify import identify >>> identify.license_id( ' LICENSE ' ) 'MIT' The return value of the license_id function is an SPDX id. Currently licenses are sourced from choosealicense.com . How it works A call to tags_from_path does this: * What is the type: file, symlink, directory? If it's not file, stop here. * Is it executable? Add the appropriate tag. * Do we recognize the file extension? If so, add the appropriate tags, stop here. These tags would include binary/text. * Peek at the first X bytes of the file. Use these to determine whether it is binary or text, add the appropriate tag. * If identified as text above, try to read and interpret the shebang, and add appropriate tags. By design, this means we don't need to partially read files where we recognize the file extension. About File identification library for Python Resources Readme MIT license Security policy Security policy Activity Custom properties Stars 297 stars Watchers 4 watching Forks 179 forks Report repository Releases Sponsor this project Packages Used by Contributors Languages Footer (c) 2026 GitHub, Inc. Footer navigation * Terms * Privacy * Security * Status * Community * Docs * Contact * Manage cookies * Do not share my personal information You can’t perform that action at this time.