This project was inspired by how Maturin packages rust binaries. The key observation is that in the wheel format, the distribution-1.0.data/scripts/ directory is copied to bin, which means we can leverage this to seamlessly copy binaries into a user's PATH.
Combined with Python's platform-specific wheels, this allows us to use pip as a "cross-platform package manager" for distributing single-binary CLI applications.
This is the list of tools bundled this way, which can be installed with pip install $TOOLNAME-bin.
The core of the logic lies in the buildlib.py module.
- A mapping from download URL (often github releases) to pypi platform tag is required.
- For each platform:
- Download the release & extract the binary.
- Set file permissions and place into scripts directory within wheel archive.
- Create the METADATA and WHEEL files within wheel archive.
- Place wheel into
dist/folder.
- Once all wheels are constructed, the distribution is uploaded to PyPI.
CICD is configured to automatically recognize new PyPI releases by looking for a diff on the PYPI_VERSION. When this happens, a build-and-release cycle is performed for that release version.