Visual Studio Code – How do I reload a python module?

This has been asked 1000 times before, but nothing seems to work for me.

Using Python3.9 and VScode, though I have tested it making edits with just the plain TextEdit app on mac as well.

I cloned this repository: https://github.com/trevorbayless/cli-chess, and I would like to customize it.

I run it via the terminal: $ python3 …/__main__.py

everything works. below is the contents of __main__.py

from cli_chess.core.main import MainModel, MainPresenter

def main() -> None:
    """Main entry point"""
    MainPresenter(MainModel()).run()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

I open the project in VScode, make a change to a file in the source code, and the change is not reflected. Only changes to __main__.py are reflected. I can move __main__.py to another directory and run the program without issue. I can even delete every project file other than __main__.py from my computer, and still run the program as if I didn’t touch a thing.

This still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but from what I understand, this is due to how modules are handled in Python, and I need to reload them. I can’t get this to work.

I’ve tried using importlib like below, and other variations. Nothing seems to make a difference.

import cli_chess.core.main
import importlib
importlib.reload(cli_chess.core.main)
from cli_chess.core.main import MainModel, MainPresenter

def main() -> None:
    """Main entry point"""
    MainPresenter(MainModel()).run()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

I’ve also seen these commands floating around:

%reload_ext autoreload
%autoreload 2

I don’t understand how to utilize this. "Just add it to your code" gives me syntax errors.

Other folks have suggested restarting VScode. I quit, I reopen, nothing changes. I’m surely missing something obvious, right? It’s kind of blowing my mind how difficult it is to throw some print statements into a fairly basic python project.

Props to trevorbayless by the way, very cool chess app.