The little hack on Fabric I use currently takes the opposite approach -- I use an @internal decorator that hides certain functions from the task list but keeps the default Fabric behavior around for anything else. It's just a few lines of codes that mess with a private list Fabric uses to track internal functions:
from fabric.main import _internals
def internal(fn):
_internals.append(fn)
return fn
_internals.append(internal)What I was trying to say in my earlier comment was that I would actually prefer the explicit @task decorator be part of the official Fabric API because it's more clear and, well, explicit. I prefer my @internal decorator as a hack in the meantime because I imagine it's less surprising to someone who might stumble upon my fabfile without any explanation from me.