typos

Low false-positive source code spell checker

TLDR

Check the current directory for misspellings

$ typos

Check a specific file or directory

$ typos [path/to/file_or_dir]

Automatically fix detected typos in place

$ typos --write-changes

Preview suggested fixes as a unified diff

$ typos --diff

Output results as JSON for tooling integration

$ typos --format json

Include hidden files and ignored paths

$ typos --hidden --no-ignore

Use a specific English locale

$ typos --locale en-gb

Check using a custom configuration file

$ typos --config [path/to/_typos.toml]

typos is a fast spell checker tailored for source code. It walks the file tree, respects .gitignore rules by default, and flags misspelled words inside identifiers, comments, and strings while keeping false positives low enough to run in pull-request gates.Detection is driven by a curated dictionary of common code typos rather than a full natural-language dictionary, so it tolerates camelCase, snake_case, abbreviations, and domain-specific jargon. Findings can be printed, written back to disk with --write-changes, or emitted as JSON for editors and CI tooling.The checker also understands per-language conventions through a file-type map, can be tuned for British or American English with --locale, and respects per-project overrides defined in \_typos.toml, typos.toml, Cargo.toml, or pyproject.toml.

PARAMETERS

-w, --write-changes

Apply the suggested corrections to files instead of only reporting them.

--diff

Print proposed changes as a unified diff without modifying files.

--format FORMAT

Output format: silent, brief, long (default), json.

--config FILE

Path to a configuration file (typically \typos.toml_).

--locale LOCALE

Set the English dialect: en, en-us, en-gb, en-ca, en-au.

--exclude GLOB

Skip paths matching the given gitignore-style pattern.

--force-exclude

Force excluded paths to be skipped even when given explicitly on the command line.

--hidden

Include hidden files and directories.

--no-ignore

Do not respect any ignore files.

--no-ignore-vcs

Do not respect ignore files inside version-control directories.

--no-ignore-dot

Do not respect .ignore files.

--no-ignore-global

Do not respect global ignore files.

--no-ignore-parent

Do not respect ignore files from parent directories.

--binary

Also check binary files as if they were text.

--no-unicode

Restrict identifiers to ASCII.

--type-list

Print all known file types and their globs.

--type TYPE

Only check files of the given type (e.g. rust, py).

--type-not TYPE

Exclude files of the given type.

-V, --version

Print the version and exit.

-h, --help

Print help.

CONFIGURATION

Project configuration lives in \_typos.toml (or a [tool.typos] table inside pyproject.toml / Cargo.toml). Common sections:

$ [default]
locale = "en-us"
extend-ignore-re = ["(?Rm)^.*#\\s*spellchecker:disable-line$"]

[default.extend-words]
mater = "mater"

[default.extend-identifiers]
HashMa = "HashMap"

[type.rust]
extend-glob = ["*.rs"]
check-file = true

The [default.extend-words] and [default.extend-identifiers] tables either remap typos to their correct spelling or mark a word/identifier as valid by mapping it to itself.

CAVEATS

typos is not a general English spell checker: it only flags words from its built-in typo dictionary, so it will miss many real misspellings outside that list. Conversely, project-specific names, acronyms, and non-English words may still trip it up and require entries in \_typos.toml. Writing changes with --write-changes modifies files in place: review with --diff first, especially when the dictionary is unfamiliar.

HISTORY

typos was created by Ed Page (crate-ci) and released as an open-source project in 2019, written in Rust. It was designed to be fast and accurate enough to run on every commit in large monorepos, drawing inspiration from earlier code-oriented spell checkers like misspell and scspell while focusing on a curated, low false-positive corpus.