How To Package Your Python Code

This tutorial aims to put forth an opinionated and specific pattern to make trouble-free packages for community use. It doesn’t describe the only way of doing things, merely one specific approach that works well.

In particular, packages should make it easy:

• To install with pip or easy_install.
• To specify as a dependency for another package.
• For other users to download and run tests.
• For other users to work on and have immediate familiary with the basic directory strucuture.
• To add and distribute documentation.

We’ll walk through the basic steps of building up a contrived package funniest to support these things.

• Minimal Structure
• Specifying Dependencies
• Better Package Metadata
• Let There Be Tests
• Command Line Scripts
• Adding Non-Code Files
• Putting It All Together
• About This Tutorial / Contributing

Note

At this time, this documentation focuses on Python 2.x only, and may not be as applicable to packages targeted to Python 3.x.

See also

Setuptools Documentation

Core setuptools documentation and API reference.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Packaging

Similar guidelines and a tutorial for the use of Distribute, a fork of Setuptools which will be the future of Python packaging in Python 3.x and beyond.