def use_astropy_helpers(**kwargs):
global BOOTSTRAPPER<EOL>config = BOOTSTRAPPER.config<EOL>config.update(**kwargs)<EOL>BOOTSTRAPPER = _Bootstrapper(**config)<EOL>BOOTSTRAPPER.run()<EOL>
Ensure that the `astropy_helpers` module is available and is importable.
This supports automatic submodule initialization if astropy_helpers is
included in a project as a git submodule, or will download it from PyPI if
necessary.

Parameters
----------

path : str or None, optional
    A filesystem path relative to the root of the project's source code
    that should be added to `sys.path` so that `astropy_helpers` can be
    imported from that path.

    If the path is a git submodule it will automatically be initialized
    and/or updated.

    The path may also be to a ``.tar.gz`` archive of the astropy_helpers
    source distribution.  In this case the archive is automatically
    unpacked and made temporarily available on `sys.path` as a ``.egg``
    archive.

    If `None` skip straight to downloading.

download_if_needed : bool, optional
    If the provided filesystem path is not found an attempt will be made to
    download astropy_helpers from PyPI.  It will then be made temporarily
    available on `sys.path` as a ``.egg`` archive (using the
    ``setup_requires`` feature of setuptools.  If the ``--offline`` option
    is given at the command line the value of this argument is overridden
    to `False`.

index_url : str, optional
    If provided, use a different URL for the Python package index than the
    main PyPI server.

use_git : bool, optional
    If `False` no git commands will be used--this effectively disables
    support for git submodules. If the ``--no-git`` option is given at the
    command line the value of this argument is overridden to `False`.

auto_upgrade : bool, optional
    By default, when installing a package from a non-development source
    distribution ah_boostrap will try to automatically check for patch
    releases to astropy-helpers on PyPI and use the patched version over
    any bundled versions.  Setting this to `False` will disable that
    functionality. If the ``--offline`` option is given at the command line
    the value of this argument is overridden to `False`.

offline : bool, optional
    If `False` disable all actions that require an internet connection,
    including downloading packages from the package index and fetching
    updates to any git submodule.  Defaults to `True`.