Worse developer experience since introducing async support - IntelliSense doesn't work for endpoint classes

[michaeloliverx]

Some background first: I used this SDK in a previous company with a very positive experience, fast forward a few years I find myself working with auth0 in python again only to find that the DX is much worse :(

Describe the problem

It looks like since the introduction of asyncio support that the attributes are dynamically added: https://github.com/auth0/auth0-python/blob/947a768617ef3c93a30c7d8579270c14ba9745f2/auth0/management/auth0.py#L81-L87

This doesn't play well with static analysis thus there is no autocomplete / intellisense for any of the endpoint classes.

This also means that type checking via mypy / pyright etc doesn't work.

What was the expected behavior?

I expect all the endpoint classes to be listed as attributes.

This was the behaviour of v3.22.0:

Reproduction

from auth0.management import Auth0

auth0_client = Auth0("", "")

auth0_client.users

Environment

• Version of this library used: 4.1.0
• Which framework are you using, if applicable:
• Other modules/plugins/libraries that might be involved:
• Any other relevant information you think would be useful:

[marcusmotill]

Agreed, also making pylint go wild:

[mardav10]

+1

[Viicos]

Hi,

I'm currently working on adding types to this sdk (on my free time). Once https://github.com/auth0/auth0-python/pull/472 gets merged, I'll continue working on the management module, and I'll be able to fix this.

[michaeloliverx]

Hi,

I'm currently working on adding types to this sdk (on my free time). Once #472 gets merged, I'll continue working on the management module, and I'll be able to fix this.

Nice work on getting that started, but I also think its important for the core team to embrace type hints for it to be successful. If there is no type checking in the CI then the type hints could quickly become out of date, wrong type hints are worse than none.

For the core team it might be worth investigating some sort of codegen solutions if the maintenance of the types is too much e.g. https://github.com/Azure/autorest / https://github.com/Azure/autorest.python

[Viicos]

I've added a mypy configuration file in the linked PR, taking into account the fact that maintainers can't fully keep return types (e.g. with TypedDict) up to date. CI will probably be updated once I'll finish working on typing

[adamjmcgrath]

Hi @michaeloliverx - thanks for raising this

The _async methods are added at runtime so not available for static analysis, other than that we have not made any other changes to the SDK that should make it worse in terms of DX.

For the core team it might be worth investigating some sort of codegen solutions if the maintenance of the types is too much e.g. https://github.com/Azure/autorest / https://github.com/Azure/autorest.python

We are investigating codegen solutions for a next major, but for the time being the async methods will remain as they are.

[michaeloliverx]

Hi @adamjmcgrath thanks for taking the time to reply.

The _async methods are added at runtime so not available for static analysis, other than that we have not made any other changes to the SDK that should make it worse in terms of DX.

This is actually not true, if we ignore the async methods for now and concentrate solely on the sync client then you will see that the DX has definitely decreased. From v3.22.0 and below the endpoint classes were set statically within the constructor of the Auth0 class:

https://github.com/auth0/auth0-python/blob/d07f87b5b389a5136d2628bd22f2cc79cf4a54eb/auth0/v3/management/auth0.py#L45-L73

From any version afterwards they are set dynamically: https://github.com/auth0/auth0-python/blob/947a768617ef3c93a30c7d8579270c14ba9745f2/auth0/management/auth0.py#L81-L87

I think it would be a definite win for users if these could be set statically again.

[Viicos]

@michaeloliverx I'm currently working on a second PR to add types, and I'm taking care of the issue you're mentioning 😊

Edit: This is how I've done it. Regarding the async client, it's a bit more difficult, as classes are created dynamically.

[adamjmcgrath]

Ah, ok - thanks for clarifying @michaeloliverx

And thanks for providing a fix @Viicos - I was away last week and am catching up with a few things, but will take a look at your PR as soon as I can

[marcusmotill]

can we reopen this? the issue is not resolved.

[adamjmcgrath]

Sure - have raised https://github.com/auth0/auth0-python/pull/486 to fix