diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -8,3 +8,4 @@
 version.txt
 .tox
 docs/apidoc
+.mypy_cache/
diff --git a/.pre-commit-config.yaml b/.pre-commit-config.yaml
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.pre-commit-config.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+repos:
+- repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks
+  rev: v2.4.0
+  hooks:
+  - id: trailing-whitespace
+  - id: flake8
+  - id: check-json
+  - id: check-yaml
+
+- repo: https://github.com/codespell-project/codespell
+  rev: v1.16.0
+  hooks:
+  - id: codespell
+
+- repo: local
+  hooks:
+  - id: mypy
+    name: mypy
+    entry: mypy
+    args: [swh]
+    pass_filenames: false
+    language: system
+    types: [python]
+
+- repo: https://github.com/python/black
+  rev: 19.10b0
+  hooks:
+  - id: black
+
+# unfortunately, we are far from being able to enable this...
+# - repo: https://github.com/PyCQA/pydocstyle.git
+#   rev: 4.0.0
+#   hooks:
+#   - id: pydocstyle
+#     name: pydocstyle
+#     description: pydocstyle is a static analysis tool for checking compliance with Python docstring conventions.
+#     entry: pydocstyle --convention=google
+#     language: python
+#     types: [python]
+
+#- repo: https://github.com/asottile/blacken-docs
+#  rev: v1.0.0-1
+#  hooks:
+#  - id: blacken-docs
+#    additional_dependencies: [black==19.3b0]
diff --git a/mypy.ini b/mypy.ini
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/mypy.ini
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+[mypy]
+namespace_packages = True
+warn_unused_ignores = True
+
+# 3rd party libraries without stubs (yet)
+
+[mypy-sphinx.*]
+ignore_missing_imports = True
diff --git a/swh/__init__.py b/swh/__init__.py
--- a/swh/__init__.py
+++ b/swh/__init__.py
@@ -1 +1,3 @@
-__path__ = __import__("pkgutil").extend_path(__path__, __name__)
+from typing import Iterable
+
+__path__: Iterable[str] = __import__("pkgutil").extend_path(__path__, __name__)
diff --git a/swh/docs/sphinx/conf.py b/swh/docs/sphinx/conf.py
--- a/swh/docs/sphinx/conf.py
+++ b/swh/docs/sphinx/conf.py
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 #
 
+from typing import Dict
+
 import django
 import os
 
@@ -139,7 +141,7 @@
 modindex_common_prefix = ["swh."]
 
 # for the extlinks extension, sub-projects should fill that dict
-extlinks = {}
+extlinks: Dict = {}
 
 
 # XXX Kill this ASA this PR is accepted and released