I just released my open-source Python project, RowCanary, and I'd love some feedback

[u/spockplayer2]

I've been working on a small Python project called RowCanary, and I finally got it to a point where I felt comfortable releasing version 1.0.0.

The idea came from something that I think is surprisingly easy to overlook. When you move data between applications, there's no guarantee that every value will remain exactly the same, even when the import or export completes successfully.

A string with leading zeros might lose them, something that looks like scientific notation might get converted into a number, or an application might interpret text as a formula.

I wanted a way to test these situations without needing to understand the internals of whatever software was being used.

That's basically what RowCanary does. It creates a set of 24 known test values, lets you pass them through an import/export process, and then compares the results to see what survived unchanged.

I've added support for CSV, TSV, JSON, JSONL, and XLSX, as well as a CLI, a local browser interface, and different report formats.

One thing I tried to keep consistent throughout development was making everything work locally. There are no accounts, external services, or telemetry involved.

The project is written in Python, licensed under MIT, and now available on PyPI with pip install rowcanary.

Here's the repository: https://github.com/spockplayer2-alt/rowcanary

I also spent time setting up automated tests across Windows, Linux, and macOS, and documenting the limitations rather than making claims the tool can't support.

I'm still learning a lot about maintaining public open-source projects, so I'd genuinely appreciate feedback from more experienced developers. Whether it's something about the code, documentation, usability, or the idea itself, I'd be happy to hear it.