# What external tools do you use for Ignition development, and why?

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/what-external-tools-do-you-use-for-ignition-development-and-why/93759>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [July 25, 2024, 5:07pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/what-external-tools-do-you-use-for-ignition-development-and-why/93759 "2024-07-25T17:07:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 67

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**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/what-external-tools-do-you-use-for-ignition-development-and-why/93759/67 "2025-04-30T18:12:01Z")

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@thecesrom.git has a set of Python "stubs" that you can import to a modern Python editor corresponding to the system functions:

> **[GitHub - ignition-devs/ignition-api-8.1: 📦 Package for the Ignition Scripting API version...](https://github.com/ignition-devs/ignition-api-8.1)**
>
> 📦 Package for the Ignition Scripting API version 8.1

> [@thecesrom/Ignition repo has moved to ignition-api GitHub org](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/thecesrom-ignition-repo-has-moved-to-ignition-api-github-org/57278):
>
> What started as a personal project I uploaded to [GitHub back in January 2018](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-mock-scripts-on-github/16468), a few months passed and the repo [found a new home](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/new-github-repo-and-new-python-package/17962). Two years later it grew [branches](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-repo-now-with-branches/37932), and later it became a [Python Package](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-scripting-api-now-available-via-pypi/50800). And this week the project reached a new milestone gaining 1,000 downloads in a month. rocket Now, onto announcements. First, I’d like to thank all who have cloned, forked, and installed the package, and second, I’d like to announce that (hopefully) the project has moved to its final home unde…

You will probably still have to manually `import system` _in your editor_ to convince it things are in scope. You don't want `import system` to end up in your final script, though it's not really catastrophic if it does.

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