Question: Problem I'm getting thousands of flake8 errors stemming from my local .env. An example of some of the error messages: ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3848:80: E501 line too long (85 > 79 characters) ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3848:84: E202 whitespace before ')' ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3855:51: E201 whitespace after '(' ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3855:65: E202 whitespace before ')' ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3858:50: E201 whitespace after '(' ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3858:78: E202 whitespace before ')' ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3861:31: E231 missing whitespace after ',' ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3865:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyparsing.py:3866:1: E302 expected 2 blank lines, found 1  My directory looks like this:  My flake8 file looks like this: [flake8] exclude = migrations, __pycache__, manage.py, settings.py,  Question How can I add my env file contents to the exclude list in flake8? What I've tried I've tried adding:  env, ./env,  I've tried taking off commas and adding: [flake8] exclude = migrations __pycache__ manage.py settings.py env .env ./env env/ .env/  Running flake8 --exclude migrations,pycache,manage.py,settings.py,env returns: ./app/core/models.py:7:80: E501 line too long (93 > 79 characters) ./app/core/models.py:13:66: E225 missing whitespace around operator ./app/core/models.py:13:80: E501 line too long (103 > 79 characters) ./app/core/admin.py:10:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/core/admin.py:11:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/core/admin.py:13:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/core/tests/test_commands.py:23:47: W292 no newline at end of file ./app/core/management/commands/wait_for_db.py:21:69: W292 no newline at end of file ./app/project/urls.py:23:2: W292 no newline at end of file ./app/inventory/serializers.py:4:1: E302 expected 2 blank lines, found 1 ./app/inventory/serializers.py:8:1: W391 blank line at end of file ./app/inventory/urls.py:5:70: W291 trailing whitespace ./app/inventory/urls.py:7:26: W292 no newline at end of file ./app/inventory/views.py:1:1: F401 'rest_framework.response.Response' imported but unused ./app/inventory/views.py:7:1: E302 expected 2 blank lines, found 1 ./app/inventory/views.py:11:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/inventory/views.py:12:5: E303 too many blank lines (2) ./app/inventory/views.py:36:43: W292 no newline at end of file ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:2:1: F401 'django.urls.reverse' imported but unused ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:7:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:9:8: E111 indentation is not a multiple of four ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:10:8: E111 indentation is not a multiple of four ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:10:40: W291 trailing whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:11:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:12:8: E111 indentation is not a multiple of four ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:13:8: E111 indentation is not a multiple of four ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:18:41: W291 trailing whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:19:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:25:37: W291 trailing whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:26:41: W291 trailing whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:27:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:31:1: W391 blank line at end of file ./app/inventory/tests/test_api.py:31:1: W293 blank line contains whitespace 

Answer: I notice your .flake8 file is inside app folder. I presume you are starting flake8 from outside the app folder, in other words from the project root. Move .flake8 to the project root, and everything's gonna work: mv app/.flake8 .