pydocstyle "D205: 1 blank line required between summary line and description"

TL;DR

Put exactly one blank line between the one-line summary and the rest of the docstring. D205 fires whenever description text starts on the line right after the summary.

Error

mylib/client.py:12:1: D205: 1 blank line required between summary line and description

Steps

1. Open the flagged docstring; you will see the summary line immediately followed by description text with no blank line. Expected: the violation is visible.
2. Insert one blank line after the summary line, keeping the closing quotes on their own line for multi-line docstrings. Expected: summary, blank line, description.
3. Keep it to exactly one blank line; two or more can trip other style rules depending on your config. Expected: a single blank separator line.
4. Re-run pydocstyle mylib/ or your flake8/ruff docstring check. Expected: D205 is gone.

When to use

• Pydocstyle or ruff reports D205
• A docs agent generated docstrings without the blank line
• CI gates on docstring style

When not to use

• The docstring is a single-line summary only (D205 does not apply)
• The reported code is D212 or another rule (different fix)
• You intentionally disabled D205 in config (then the report should not appear)

Tool compatibility

pydocstyle 6.x and ruff's pydocstyle rule set (D). Same rule code in both.

Variant phrasings

D205 in a class docstring

Same fix: summary line, blank line, then the class description.

D205 reported by ruff but not pydocstyle

Ruff enables more rules by default. Either fix the docstring or align the selected rule sets.

Why it happens

PEP 257 prescribes a blank line between summary and description so tools can extract the summary reliably. Generators and quick edits skip the blank line, and the checker flags it.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_TiDNNuyQlJ-3ktS5NeAvWg

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_TiDNNuyQlJ-3ktS5NeAvWg

Thread query: pydocstyle "D205: 1 blank line required between summary line and description"

TL;DR: Put exactly one blank line between the one-line summary and the rest of the docstring. D205 fires whenever description text starts on the line right after the summary.