Install black with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, Nix, winget

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• black
• blackd

Project history

Black was first published to PyPI in March 2018 and its GitHub repository was created the same day. Its README and documentation present it as 'The Uncompromising Code Formatter': users trade manual formatting control for speed, determinism, smaller diffs, and fewer style arguments.

The project is now maintained under the Python Software Foundation GitHub organization. Its documentation codifies a stability policy, preview style, and yearly stable style cadence, allowing Black to support new Python syntax while preserving formatting predictability for established projects.

Adoption history

Black spread rapidly through PyPI, pre-commit, CI, editor integrations, and Linux/macOS/Windows package managers. The README lists major projects and organizations using it, including pytest, Django, pandas, SQLAlchemy, Home Assistant, Zulip, Dropbox, Lyft, Mozilla, Quora, and others.

Its adoption changed Python package maintenance culture: many projects stopped debating PEP 8 edge cases in reviews and delegated whitespace, wrapping, quote normalization, and import-adjacent formatting decisions to a pinned formatter version.

How it is used

The standard CLI workflow is black {source_file_or_directory}; Black reformats files in place and can also run as python -m black. Configuration normally lives in a project's pyproject.toml under [tool.black], with global fallback files at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/black or ~/.config/black on Unix-like systems and ~/.black on Windows.

Black is commonly run from pre-commit hooks, GitHub Actions, editors, and CI jobs. Its documentation recommends the psf/black-pre-commit-mirror hook for version-control integration and warns that blackd does not use pyproject.toml configuration.

Why package nerds care

Black is package-nerd significant because it made formatter pinning a first-class dependency-management concern in Python. A Black version in pyproject.toml, pre-commit config, CI images, or distro packages can affect every formatted file in a repository, so release notes and stability guarantees matter more than they do for many CLIs.

It also helped shift Python packaging metadata toward pyproject.toml as a shared control plane: the same file that PEP 518 introduced for builds became the obvious place to store Black's project style. Black's presence in Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Alpine, Nix, and winget mirrors its role as both Python package and general developer workstation tool.

For maintainers, Black became shorthand for removing a category of bikeshed from reviews. For downstream packagers, it is a high-visibility fast-moving Python application that must track supported Python versions, parser behavior, compiled wheels, pre-commit mirrors, and reproducible CLI behavior.

Timeline

• 2018-03-14: Black 18.3a0 is uploaded to PyPI and the GitHub repository is created.
• 2019: The project gains broad public visibility through talks, docs, badges, and early adopter projects.
• 2022-01-29: Black 22.1.0 is published as the first non-alpha, stable-style release line.
• 2020s: Black becomes widely packaged across Homebrew, Linux distributions, Nix, and winget while remaining centered on PyPI and pre-commit workflows.
• 2024-2026: Black's changelog documents yearly stable-style releases and preview/unstable channels for future formatting changes.

Related projects

• Black's README explicitly situates it near gofmt and lists autopep8 and YAPF among related Python formatters through repository topics.
• It is commonly paired with pre-commit, CI systems, editor integrations, and Python packaging metadata in pyproject.toml.

Sources

• https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable
• https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/integrations/source_version_control.html
• https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/the_black_code_style/index.html#stability-policy
• https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage_and_configuration/the_basics.html
• https://github.com/psf/black#readme
• https://pypi.org/project/black/
• source_facts.package-manager