Intention actions

As you work in the editor, PyCharm analyzes your code, searches for ways to optimize it, and detects potential and actual problems.

As soon as the IDE finds a way to alter your code, it displays a yellow bulb icon in the editor next to the cursor. By clicking this icon, you can view intention actions available for this unit of code. Intention actions cover a wide range of situations from warnings to optimization suggestions. You can open the full list of actions, view their descriptions, and disable intentions in the settings.

A red bulb with an exclamation mark indicates that PyCharm has detected a problem, and prompts you to select an associated fix — a quick-fix.

Apply intention actions

Click the light bulb icon (or press Alt+Enter) to open the list of suggestions.

Select an action from the list.

For example, PyCharm provides an intention that converts .format() calls and printf-style formatting to f-string literals. This intention is called Convert to f-string literal, and works as follows:

Before	After
`var = 'hello %s!' % 'John'`	`var = f'hello {"John"}!'`
`var = 'hello {}!'.format('John')`	`var = f'hello {"John"}!'`

Before

After

var = 'hello %s!' % 'John'

var = f'hello {"John"}!'

var = 'hello {}!'.format('John')

var = f'hello {"John"}!'

View all intention actions

You can view the full list of available intention actions, and disable actions that you don't need at the moment:

In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), select Editor | Intentions.
For each intention action, you can see a description and an example.

If you want to disable an intention, deselect the checkbox next to it.
Apply the changes and close the dialog.

Disable intention actions on the fly

Click the light bulb icon (or press Alt+Enter) to open the list of suggestions.
Select the action you want to disable, and click the right arrow.
Select Disable <intention action name>.