AspectPA

AspectPA is an open‑source Python package that implements aspect‑oriented programming (AOP) techniques. The library was first released in 2019 by independent developers and is distributed under the MIT license. Its primary goal is to provide a lightweight, easy‑to‑install tool for applying cross‑cutting concerns such as logging, authentication, performance monitoring and error handling without modifying the core application code.

The API of AspectPA centers on three core concepts: points, advices and join points. A point is defined using a regular‑expression‑style selector that matches function names, class methods or module attributes. An advice can be of type before, after, around or after‑throwing, and is a user‑supplied callback that runs at or around the specified join point. Join points are the executable boundaries where advices are applied, for example, before a function call or after its return value has been computed. The library provides decorators and a general-purpose apply() function that can be used to bind advices to points at runtime.

AspectPA integrates seamlessly with Python’s standard logging module and offers built‑in advice templates for common patterns such as timing, retry logic and cache injection. Since its initial release it has received regular updates that added support for async functions, enhanced type‑hint compatibility and performance improvements through byte‑code instrumentation. Community contributors have ported the library to work with popular web frameworks such as Flask and FastAPI, where it is often used to add centralized request/response logging and authentication checks.

Documentation for AspectPA is maintained on its GitHub repository, which hosts example projects, a full API reference and tutorials on how to embed the library into existing codebases. The project’s issue tracker currently sees active discussions on further optimizations and the potential inclusion of a compile‑time weaving option. As of 2026, the library has over 200 stars and a growing user base in both academic research and commercial software development.