# gruns/icecream

🍦 Never use print() to debug again.

Repository: https://github.com/gruns/icecream
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/icecream
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: python, python3, library, inspects, debug, debugging, debugging-tool, print
Last push: 2026-08-21T05:42:05+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 87/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 65, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3123, "days_push": 12, "days_rel": 152, "gap_med": 38.0, "n_releases_24m": 9}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 10109, forks 227 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:39.584937+00:00)

## What it is
IceCream is a Python library that provides the ic() function as a smarter replacement for print() debugging. It prints expressions alongside their values, pretty-prints data structures with syntax highlighting, and can report execution context like filename, line number, and parent function.

## Use cases
- debug python code without print statements
- print variable names and values together
- inspect expressions while debugging
- trace which parts of code execute
- pretty print data structures during debugging
- add quick debug output with file and line numbers

## When to choose
- you rely on print() or log() for quick debugging in Python
- you want to see both the expression and its value in debug output
- you need formatted, syntax-highlighted output of complex data structures
- you want a drop-in debug helper that returns its arguments

## When to avoid
- you need structured or production-grade logging with levels and handlers
- you want a full interactive debugger like pdb
- your project is not Python

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: logging, developer-tools, cli
- domain: developer-tools
- platform: python, cross-platform
- tags: print-debugging, debugging-tool, syntax-highlighting, pretty-printing, python3, pypy, debugging, python

## Member repositories
- gruns/icecream (main) score 87

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:39.584937+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:19:43.403013+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/gruns/icecream (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:39.584937+00:00, sha f73e3068d31f)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/icecream/json (fetched 2026-08-29T08:19:22.396122+00:00, sha 5105ee705270)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.