Yes, Robocop integrates nicely with popular IDEs like PyCharm or VSCode thanks to Robot Framework Language Server. Read simple manual (README) in that project to figure out how to install & use it.

You can also use Robocop in PyCharm easily as an external tool. To configure it, go to: File → Settings → Tools → External Tools and click + icon. Then put values based on official instructions or this screenshot:

If you're using Python virtual environment in your project, make sure to provide correct path to robocop.exe located in venv\Scripts\robocop.exe. Now, you can run Robocop by right-clicking on a file or directory and choosing External tools → Robocop.

We suggest also to add a keyboard shortcut (e.g. Ctrl + , (comma)) to quickly run Robocop on selected files. You can map the shortcut in Settings → Keymap.

Yes, there are multiple ways to configure Robocop:

Argument file

You can add command line options to an argument file, preferably one option with value for a line. Such file can be used as an input for Robocop with --argumentfile / -A option, e.g. robocop -A robocop.cfg. You can mix arguments from a file with ones provided in run command.

Example argument file:

--exclude *doc*
--exclude 0510
--threshold W
--configure inconsistent-assignment:assignment_sign_type:equal_sign
--configure line-too-long:line_length:140
--reports all
--output robocop.log

.robocop file

It is a default file that is loaded only when no command line options are provided for Robocop. When running plain robocop command, it looks for .robocop file from place where it was run until it finds .git file. Options can be provided like in the example above.

pyproject.toml file

If there is no .robocop file and toml module is installed, Robocop will try to load configuration from pyproject.toml file (if it exists). Options have the same names as command line arguments and need to be placed under [tool.robocop] section.

Example configuration file:

[tool.robocop]
paths = [
    "tests\\atest\\rules\\bad-indent",
    "tests\\atest\\rules\\duplicated-library"
]
include = ['W0504', '*doc*']
exclude = ["0203"]
reports = [
    "rules_by_id",
    "scan_timer"
]
ignore = ["ignore_me.robot"]
ext-rules = ["path_to_external\\dir"]
filetypes = [".txt", ".tsv"]
threshold = "E"
format = "{source}:{line}:{col} [{severity}] {rule_id} {desc} (name)"
output = "robocop.log"
configure = [
    "line-too-long:line_length:150",
    "0201:severity:E"
]
no_recursive = true

Yes, some rules are configurable. You can list them by running robocop --list-configurables or just robocop -lc.

Configuring is done by using -c / --configure command line option followed by pattern <rule>:<param_name>:<value> where:

• <rule> can either be rule name or its id
• <param_name> is a public name of the parameter
• <value> is a desired value of the parameter

For example:

--configure line-too-long:line_length:140

is equivalent to

-c 0508:line_length:140

Each rule's severity can also be overwritten. Possible values are e/error, w/warning or i/info and are case-insensitive. Example:

-c too-long-test-case:severity:e

If there are special cases in your code that violate the rules, you can also exclude them in the source code.

Example:

Keyword with lowercased name  # robocop: disable

More about it in our documentation.

Yes, you can define and include custom rules using -rules / --ext-rules command line option by providing a path to a file containing your rule(s). The option accepts comma-separated list of paths to files or directories, e.g.

robocop -rules my/own/rule.py --ext-rules rules.py,external_rules.py

If you feel that your rule is very helpful and should be included in Robocop permanently, you can always share your solution by submitting a pull request. You can also share your idea by creating an issue.

More about external rules with code examples in our documentation.

Yes, it is easy to integrate Robocop with other tools. It is possible to redirect the output to a file by using -o / --output command line option which can later be easily parsed because the format is very similar to other linter tools like pylint.

For example in Jenkins you can use Warnings Next Generation plugin to integrate Robocop results in your pipeline. More details can be found here.

One of the important topics related to CI is return code which can also be configured in Robocop. More on that can be found in the next question or in our documentation.

Yes, by default Robocop returns code 0 if number of found issues does not exceed quality gates.

Quality gates are the number specified for each severity (error, warning, info) that cannot be exceeded. Every violation of quality gates increases the return code by 1 up to maximum of 255. Default values for quality gates are:

quality_gate = {
          'E': 0,
          'W': 0,
          'I': -1
      }

which shows the accepted number of issues by severity. In that case each error and warning increases the return code. Rules with INFO severity do not affect the return code.

To configure quality gates, you simply use -c / --configure command line option with following pattern --configure return_status:quality_gates:<severity>=limit. You can change all limits at once. Example:

--configure return_status:quality_gates:E=0:W=100:I=-1

which means that no errors are accepted, up to 100 warnings are tolerated and issues with INFO severity do not affect the return code.

Robocop is better in every case because it:

• has maaaaany rules that check the quality of your Robot Framework code
• is integrated with popular IDE tools
• is highly configurable
• has very good defaults that work out of the box
• can be configured in source code
• uses the latest Robot Framework Parsing API
• is actively developed & fixed
• is easy to integrate with external tools
• can redirect output to a file
• displays nice reports
• is easy to extend it with new rules
• is cool 🤓

Still not convinced? Watch our talk about Robocop & Robotidy and see for yourself! 🧐