cheapwine 0.1.3

A lightweight, project-based Wine prefix and application manager (Wine's version of uv)

🍷 cheapwine

A project-local Wine prefix and application manager (Wine's version of uv).

cheapwine brings modern, declarative, and fast workflow management to Wine environments. Instead of managing a bloated directory of global prefixes (like Lutris or Bottles), cheapwine isolates prefixes directly inside your project folders and exposes a clean, git-friendly configuration file named distillery.json.

[!NOTE] This project was fully designed and built by Gemini and DeepSeek (Advanced Agentic Coding AIs) in pair programming with the user! 🤖✨

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Key Features

• Project-Local Prefixes: Automatically sandboxes your Wine environments in .cheapwine inside your project directory.
• Declarative Distillery Settings (distillery.json): Declare architectures, Windows versions, environment variables, and application commands in a single, portable JSON file.
• Runner Overrides: Use system Wine, Proton (via Steam), Wine-GE, Kron4ek, Soda, or custom-compiled Wine builds, both globally and overridden per application.
• Runner Auto-Downloads: Automatically download Wine-GE, Proton-GE, Kron4ek, and Soda runners from GitHub by name (e.g. wine-ge-8-26, kron4ek-9.0).
• Custom Runner Versions: Pin specific runner versions (e.g. wine-ge-8-26) globally or per application.
• Declarative Winetricks: Define winetricks components (DLLs, codecs, fonts) in distillery.json — applied automatically on prefix init and cached to avoid re-application.
• Chocolatey Integration: Install and manage Windows packages (like browsers, runtimes, or utilities) directly inside the prefix with automated installation of Chocolatey-for-wine.
• LatencyFleX Support: Built-in LatencyFleX environment variable configuration for competitive gaming (NVIDIA Reflex-like latency reduction).
• Legacy 32-bit Support: Create isolated 32-bit Wine prefixes (win32) on the fly, even for individual applications in a 64-bit project.
• Auto-Integration Spam Block: Prevents Wine from cluttering your Linux host's desktop search menu during app installation by disabling winemenubuilder by default.
• Manual Desktop Export: Clean CLI tools (cheapwine export / cheapwine unexport) to manually generate standard Linux desktop launchers (.desktop entries) for only the applications you want.
• Auto-Discovery Scanner: Scans Wine Start Menu shortcuts and drive_c/Program Files to automatically detect newly installed programs.
• Beautiful CLI & Interactive TUI: Features a clean, colorful, emoji-rich command-line output (inspired by uv) and a live interactive Terminal User Interface (TUI) menu for select-and-run workflows.
• EasyDistill TUI Editor: Full-screen interactive configuration editor (cheapwine easydistill) for editing distillery.json without touching JSON directly.

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Installation

To install cheapwine locally in editable mode (or from the repository root):

pip install -e .

This registers the cheapwine and cw entrypoints in your shell.

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Quick Start

1. Initialize a Project

Create a new directory and initialize the environment. This generates the distillery.json settings file and creates the local Wine prefix:

mkdir my-project && cd my-project
cheapwine init

2. Install a Program

Run your installer (e.g., setup.exe) inside the project prefix. cheapwine will block it from writing shortcuts to your Linux host applications menu, keeping your desktop clean:

cheapwine run setup.exe

3. Scan & List Installed Programs

Search the prefix for newly installed executables or shortcuts:

cheapwine list --all
# or only show auto-detected ones
cheapwine list --detected

4. Register the Application by Name

Register the auto-detected application in distillery.json by name only (it will automatically resolve the path to the executable):

cheapwine add "My Application"

5. Launch the TUI Menu

To see a menu of all registered and detected applications, use the arrow keys to navigate, and press Enter to launch:

cheapwine
# or
cheapwine run

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Configuration (distillery.json)

Here is an example of a fully configured distillery.json:

{
  "name": "my-legacy-workspace",
  "wine_arch": "win64",
  "wine_version": "system",
  "win_version": "win10",
  "runner": "wine",
  "runner_version": "wine-ge-8-26",
  "latencyflex": false,
  "winetricks": ["corefonts", "vcrun2022"],
  "env": {
    "WINEDEBUG": "-all"
  },
  "apps": {
    "notepad": {
      "exe": "notepad.exe",
      "args": ["/A"],
      "env": {}
    },
    "win95_game": {
      "exe": "C:\\Program Files\\MyGame\\game.exe",
      "win_version": "win95",
      "wine_arch": "win32",
      "runner": "/home/user/wine-ge/bin/wine"
    },
    "my_game": {
      "exe": "C:\\Games\\game.exe",
      "latencyflex": true,
      "winetricks": ["d3dx11_43", "dxvk"],
      "args": ["-dx11"]
    }
  }
}

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Advanced Configurations

Running a Legacy 32-bit Windows 95 App

If you have a game or program that requires a pure 32-bit prefix configured for Windows 95, you can add it with specific overrides:

cheapwine add "RetroGame" "C:\Program Files\game.exe" --arch win32 --win-version win95

When running cheapwine run RetroGame, a separate, isolated 32-bit Wine prefix is created inside .cheapwine_win32, and the registry is set to Windows 95 compatibility mode for this app.

Using Custom Runners (like Proton)

You can configure a custom Wine runner (such as Proton for Steam games, Bottles runners, or custom builds) either globally or per-application:

Globally:

cheapwine init --runner "/home/user/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton8-25/files/bin/wine"

Per-Application:

cheapwine add "SteamApp" "game.exe" --runner "proton run"

Auto-Downloading Runners by Name

Specify a downloadable runner by name and version — cheapwine fetches it from GitHub automatically:

cheapwine init --runner "wine-ge" --runner-version "8-26"
cheapwine init --runner "proton-ge" --runner-version "8-25"
cheapwine init --runner "kron4ek" --runner-version "9.0"
cheapwine init --runner "soda" --runner-version "9.0-1"

Declarative Winetricks

Define winetricks components directly when initializing the project:

cheapwine init --runner "wine-ge-8-26" --tricks corefonts --tricks vcrun2022 --tricks dxvk
# or using the short option:
# cheapwine init -t corefonts -t vcrun2022

You can also declare or modify them by editing the "winetricks" array in distillery.json:

"winetricks": ["corefonts", "vcrun2022", "dxvk"]

Components are applied automatically during cheapwine init and when running an app that has them configured. Applied components are cached per prefix in cheapwine_tricks.json so they are only downloaded and applied once.

Per-application winetricks:

cheapwine add "MyGame" "game.exe" --tricks d3dx11_43 --tricks dxvk

LatencyFleX Support

Enable LatencyFleX globally or per-application for NVIDIA Reflex-like latency reduction in competitive games:

Globally:

cheapwine init --latencyflex

Per-Application:

cheapwine add "CS2" "cs2.exe" --latencyflex

Chocolatey Package Manager Integration

cheapwine supports installing and managing Windows applications and dependencies via Chocolatey directly inside your local prefix.

When you run cheapwine chocolatey for the first time, it automatically downloads and installs Chocolatey-for-wine in the prefix.

Examples:

# Install Firefox inside the prefix
cheapwine chocolatey install firefox

# Search for available packages
cheapwine chocolatey search git

# List installed packages
cheapwine chocolatey list

Desktop Export & Custom URI Schemes

You can export any registered or auto-detected application to your host Linux desktop menu (generating a .desktop file and extracting its native .exe icon automatically). Additionally, you can register custom URI schemes (like myapp://...) so that clicking links in your browser launches the app inside the correct project prefix context.

Exporting an App

Export an application by name. This will extract its embedded icon using pefile and Pillow, place it in ~/.local/share/icons, and generate a launcher file in ~/.local/share/applications:

cheapwine export "SteamApp"

Registering Custom URI Schemes

You can associate custom URI/protocol handlers with an application:

cheapwine export "SteamApp" --uri-scheme "steam" --uri-scheme "steamlink"

Or define them during registration:

cheapwine add "SteamApp" "steam.exe" --uri-scheme "steam"

Once registered and exported, any URIs starting with steam:// clicked on your host system will launch the SteamApp executable inside this specific project's prefix and pass the URI payload directly to it.

To remove host integration:

cheapwine unexport "SteamApp"

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Command Reference

Command	Options	Description	Example
cheapwine init	--arch [win32|win64], --win-version, --runner, --runner-version, --tricks/-t, --latencyflex/--no-latencyflex, --force	Creates distillery.json and initializes the Wine prefix.	cheapwine init --arch win32 --win-version win95 --latencyflex
cheapwine run	[app_or_exe], [extra_args...]	Runs a registered app or an executable path. Launches TUI if no app specified.	cheapwine run mygame -dx11
cheapwine tui	None	Launches the interactive arrow-key select menu.	cheapwine tui
cheapwine add	--env/-e, --workdir/-w, --win-version, --arch, --runner, --runner-version, --tricks/-t, --latencyflex/--no-latencyflex, --uri-scheme	Registers an application. If EXE path omitted, resolves from auto-detected apps.	cheapwine add steam
cheapwine remove	<name>	Removes an application definition.	cheapwine remove steam
cheapwine list	--all / -a, --detected / -d	Lists registered and/or auto-detected applications.	cheapwine list --all
cheapwine export	<name>, --uri-scheme	Generates a desktop launcher in the host Linux applications menu and registers URI protocols.	cheapwine export "RetroGame" --uri-scheme myapp
cheapwine unexport	<name>	Removes an exported desktop launcher and associated URI handlers from the host.	cheapwine unexport "RetroGame"
cheapwine wine	[wine_args...]	Runs a Wine utility in the prefix context. Defaults to winecfg.	cheapwine wine regedit
cheapwine winetricks	[tricks_args...]	Runs winetricks inside the local prefix context.	cheapwine winetricks corefonts
cheapwine chocolatey	[choco_args...]	Runs Chocolatey commands inside the local prefix context (auto-installs if missing).	cheapwine chocolatey install firefox
cheapwine env	None	Prints shell environment exports to manually hook your terminal into the prefix.	cheapwine env
cheapwine uri	<URL>	Handles a URI from the host system via the exported application's protocol.	cheapwine uri myapp://args
cheapwine easydistill	None	Launches the interactive TUI configuration editor for distillery.json.	cheapwine easydistill

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Development & Testing

Running Tests

To run the full suite of unit and integration tests (uses click.testing.CliRunner and mocks Wine processes for speed):

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests

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Publishing to PyPI

This project is configured to publish automatically to PyPI via GitHub Actions using Trusted Publishing (OIDC).

How to Release a New Version

1. Create and push a version tag matching v* (e.g. v0.1.0):

   git tag v0.1.0
   git push origin v0.1.0
   

2. The workflow will automatically extract the version (stripping the leading v), write it into pyproject.toml, build the distribution packages, and publish to PyPI.

Alternatively, you can trigger the build manually from the GitHub Actions tab, selecting a custom version override if desired.

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License

MIT License. See LICENSE (if present) for details.