explaingit

zlibs-community/zspec

22PythonAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

TLDR

A Python library for writing and combining business rules using the Specification pattern, with adapters to apply the same rule to SQL, MongoDB, Django, SQLAlchemy, Polars, and Pandas.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((zspec))
    What it does
      Define business rules as classes
      Combine rules with and or not
      Inline rules via lambdas
    Tech stack
      Python 3.12
      PyPI package
    Use cases
      Filter data across backends
      Store rules in config files
      Debug complex rule logic
    Audience
      Backend developers
      Data engineers
    Backends
      SQL
      MongoDB
      Django
      SQLAlchemy
      Polars
      Pandas
Click or tap to explore — scroll the page freely

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Write a reusable "active user" rule once and apply it to both your SQL database and a Pandas dataframe without changing the rule.

USE CASE 2

Store filtering rules as JSON in a database so non-engineers can update them without touching code.

USE CASE 3

Debug why a complex composed rule is failing by calling explain() to see which sub-condition failed.

USE CASE 4

Build an e-commerce product filter that chains price, category, and stock rules using & and | operators.

Tech stack

PythonSQLMongoDBDjangoSQLAlchemyPolarsPandas

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires Python 3.12 or higher, backend adapters are optional pip extras.

License information was not mentioned in the explanation.

In plain English

zspec is a Python library that helps developers write and combine business rules in a structured way using a pattern called the Specification pattern. The core idea is that each rule is a small class with a single job: check whether a given object meets a condition. You can then combine rules using familiar operators like & (and), | (or), ^ (exclusive or), and ~ (not) to build more complex checks from simple ones without writing a new class for each combination. Rather than defining a class for every rule, zspec also lets you declare rules inline using field comparisons or short lambda functions. Either approach produces the same kind of composable object, so you can mix and match both styles in the same project. One practical feature is that the same specification can be translated into query syntax for multiple data backends. The library ships adapters for SQL, MongoDB, Django query objects, SQLAlchemy, Polars, and Pandas. You describe a rule once and apply it to whichever storage or data-processing layer your project uses. You can also serialize a specification to a Python dictionary and reload it from that dictionary later, which means rules can be stored in configuration files or databases. A built-in explain() function shows a pass or fail result for every node in a composed rule, making it easier to debug why a complex condition is or is not matching a particular object. The library requires Python 3.12 or higher and has no mandatory external dependencies. Optional extras add the specific backend adapters for databases and data-frame libraries. It is published on PyPI and installable with a single pip command.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Using the zspec library, write a Python specification that checks whether a product is in stock, has a price under $50, and belongs to the 'electronics' category. Then show how to apply it to a Pandas dataframe.
Prompt 2
Show me how to serialize a zspec Specification to a Python dict, save it to a JSON file, then reload and re-apply it.
Prompt 3
Using zspec, write a rule that can be translated to both a Django ORM queryset and a SQLAlchemy query without duplicating logic.
Prompt 4
How do I use zspec's explain() function to debug why a composed specification is returning False for a given object?
Open on GitHub → Explain another repo

← zlibs-community on gitmyhub — every repo by this author, as a profile.

Verify against the repo before relying on details.