+_Black_ prefers double quotes (`"` and `"""`) over single quotes (`'` and `'''`). It
+will replace the latter with the former as long as it does not result in more backslash
+escapes than before.
+
+_Black_ also standardizes string prefixes, making them always lowercase. On top of that,
+if your code is already Python 3.6+ only or it's using the `unicode_literals` future
+import, _Black_ will remove `u` from the string prefix as it is meaningless in those
+scenarios.
+
+The main reason to standardize on a single form of quotes is aesthetics. Having one kind
+of quotes everywhere reduces reader distraction. It will also enable a future version of
+_Black_ to merge consecutive string literals that ended up on the same line (see
+[#26](https://github.com/psf/black/issues/26) for details).
+
+Why settle on double quotes? They anticipate apostrophes in English text. They match the
+docstring standard described in
+[PEP 257](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0257/#what-is-a-docstring). An empty
+string in double quotes (`""`) is impossible to confuse with a one double-quote
+regardless of fonts and syntax highlighting used. On top of this, double quotes for
+strings are consistent with C which Python interacts a lot with.
+
+On certain keyboard layouts like US English, typing single quotes is a bit easier than
+double quotes. The latter requires use of the Shift key. My recommendation here is to
+keep using whatever is faster to type and let _Black_ handle the transformation.
+
+If you are adopting _Black_ in a large project with pre-existing string conventions
+(like the popular
+["single quotes for data, double quotes for human-readable strings"](https://stackoverflow.com/a/56190)),
+you can pass `--skip-string-normalization` on the command line. This is meant as an
+adoption helper, avoid using this for new projects.
+
+### Numeric literals
+
+_Black_ standardizes most numeric literals to use lowercase letters for the syntactic
+parts and uppercase letters for the digits themselves: `0xAB` instead of `0XAB` and
+`1e10` instead of `1E10`. Python 2 long literals are styled as `2L` instead of `2l` to
+avoid confusion between `l` and `1`.
+
+### Line breaks & binary operators
+
+_Black_ will break a line before a binary operator when splitting a block of code over
+multiple lines. This is so that _Black_ is compliant with the recent changes in the
+[PEP 8](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#should-a-line-break-before-or-after-a-binary-operator)
+style guide, which emphasizes that this approach improves readability.
+
+This behaviour may raise `W503 line break before binary operator` warnings in style
+guide enforcement tools like Flake8. Since `W503` is not PEP 8 compliant, you should
+tell Flake8 to ignore these warnings.
+
+### Slices
+
+PEP 8
+[recommends](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#whitespace-in-expressions-and-statements)
+to treat `:` in slices as a binary operator with the lowest priority, and to leave an
+equal amount of space on either side, except if a parameter is omitted (e.g.
+`ham[1 + 1 :]`). It also states that for extended slices, both `:` operators have to
+have the same amount of spacing, except if a parameter is omitted (`ham[1 + 1 ::]`).
+_Black_ enforces these rules consistently.
+
+This behaviour may raise `E203 whitespace before ':'` warnings in style guide
+enforcement tools like Flake8. Since `E203` is not PEP 8 compliant, you should tell
+Flake8 to ignore these warnings.
+
+### Parentheses
+
+Some parentheses are optional in the Python grammar. Any expression can be wrapped in a
+pair of parentheses to form an atom. There are a few interesting cases:
+
+- `if (...):`
+- `while (...):`
+- `for (...) in (...):`
+- `assert (...), (...)`
+- `from X import (...)`
+- assignments like:
+ - `target = (...)`
+ - `target: type = (...)`
+ - `some, *un, packing = (...)`
+ - `augmented += (...)`
+
+In those cases, parentheses are removed when the entire statement fits in one line, or
+if the inner expression doesn't have any delimiters to further split on. If there is
+only a single delimiter and the expression starts or ends with a bracket, the
+parenthesis can also be successfully omitted since the existing bracket pair will
+organize the expression neatly anyway. Otherwise, the parentheses are added.
+
+Please note that _Black_ does not add or remove any additional nested parentheses that
+you might want to have for clarity or further code organization. For example those
+parentheses are not going to be removed:
+
+```py3
+return not (this or that)
+decision = (maybe.this() and values > 0) or (maybe.that() and values < 0)
+```
+
+### Call chains
+
+Some popular APIs, like ORMs, use call chaining. This API style is known as a
+[fluent interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface). _Black_ formats
+those by treating dots that follow a call or an indexing operation like a very low
+priority delimiter. It's easier to show the behavior than to explain it. Look at the
+example:
+
+```py3
+def example(session):
+ result = (
+ session.query(models.Customer.id)
+ .filter(
+ models.Customer.account_id == account_id,
+ models.Customer.email == email_address,
+ )
+ .order_by(models.Customer.id.asc())
+ .all()
+ )
+```
+
+### Typing stub files
+
+PEP 484 describes the syntax for type hints in Python. One of the use cases for typing
+is providing type annotations for modules which cannot contain them directly (they might
+be written in C, or they might be third-party, or their implementation may be overly
+dynamic, and so on).
+
+To solve this,
+[stub files with the `.pyi` file extension](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0484/#stub-files)
+can be used to describe typing information for an external module. Those stub files omit
+the implementation of classes and functions they describe, instead they only contain the
+structure of the file (listing globals, functions, and classes with their members). The
+recommended code style for those files is more terse than PEP 8:
+
+- prefer `...` on the same line as the class/function signature;
+- avoid vertical whitespace between consecutive module-level functions, names, or
+ methods and fields within a single class;
+- use a single blank line between top-level class definitions, or none if the classes
+ are very small.
+
+_Black_ enforces the above rules. There are additional guidelines for formatting `.pyi`
+file that are not enforced yet but might be in a future version of the formatter:
+
+- all function bodies should be empty (contain `...` instead of the body);
+- do not use docstrings;
+- prefer `...` over `pass`;
+- for arguments with a default, use `...` instead of the actual default;
+- avoid using string literals in type annotations, stub files support forward references
+ natively (like Python 3.7 code with `from __future__ import annotations`);
+- use variable annotations instead of type comments, even for stubs that target older
+ versions of Python;
+- for arguments that default to `None`, use `Optional[]` explicitly;
+- use `float` instead of `Union[int, float]`.
+
+## Pragmatism
+
+Early versions of _Black_ used to be absolutist in some respects. They took after its
+initial author. This was fine at the time as it made the implementation simpler and
+there were not many users anyway. Not many edge cases were reported. As a mature tool,
+_Black_ does make some exceptions to rules it otherwise holds. This section documents
+what those exceptions are and why this is the case.