Pyprojectx: All-inclusive Python Projects

Execute scripts from pyproject.toml, installing tools on-the-fly

Full documentation

Introduction

Pyprojectx makes it easy to create all-inclusive Python projects; no need to install any tools upfront, not even Pyprojectx itself!

Tools that are specified within your pyproject.toml file will be installed on demand when invoked from Pyprojectx:

> ./pw ruff check src
Installed 1 package in 149ms
 + ruff==0.12.7

All checks passed!

Feature highlights

• Reproducible builds by treating tools and utilities as (locked) dev-dependencies
• No global installs, everything is stored inside your project directory (like npm's node_modules)
• Bootstrap your entire build process with a small wrapper script (like Gradle's gradlew wrapper)
• Configure shortcuts for routine tasks
• Simple configuration in pyproject.toml

Projects can be build/tested/used immediately without explicit installation nor initialization:

git clone https://github.com/pyprojectx/px-demo.git
cd px-demo
./pw build

Installation

One of the key features is that there is no need to install anything explicitly (except a Python 3.9+ interpreter).

cd into your project directory and download the wrapper scripts:

Linux/Mac

curl -LO https://github.com/pyprojectx/pyprojectx/releases/latest/download/wrappers.zip && unzip wrappers.zip && rm -f wrappers.zip

Windows

Invoke-WebRequest https://github.com/pyprojectx/pyprojectx/releases/latest/download/wrappers.zip -OutFile wrappers.zip; Expand-Archive -Path wrappers.zip -DestinationPath .; Remove-Item -Path wrappers.zip

Getting started

Initialize a new or existing project by adding tools (on Windows, replace ./pw with pw):

./pw --add uv,ruff,pre-commit,px-utils
./pw --install-context main
# invoke a tool via the wrapper script
./pw uv --version
./pw ruff check src
# or activate the tool context
source .pyprojectx/main/activate
uv --version
ruff check src

For reproducible builds and developer experience, it is recommended to lock the versions of the tools and add the generated pw.lock file to your repository:

./pw --lock

Create command shortcuts

The tool.pyprojectx.aliases section in pyproject.toml can contain commandline aliases:

[tool.pyprojectx.aliases]
# convenience shortcuts
run = "uv run"
test = "uv run pytest"
lint = ["ruff check"]
check = ["@lint", "@test"]

Usage

Instead of calling the CLI of a tool directly, prefix it with ./pw (pw on Windows).

Examples:

./pw uv add --dev pytest
cd src
../pw lint

Aliases can be invoked as is or with extra arguments:

./pw uv run my-script --foo bar
# same as above, but using the run alias
./pw run my-script --foo bar

Why yet another tool?

• As Python noob I had hard times setting up a project and building existing projects
• There is always someone in the team having issues with his setup, either with a specific tool, with Homebrew, pipx, ...
• Using (uv, PDM or Poetry) dev-dependencies to install tools, impacts your production dependencies and can even lead to dependency conflicts
• Different projects often require different versions of the same tool

Example projects

• This project (using uv)
• px-demo (using uv, PDM or Poetry)

Development

• Build/test:

git clone https://github.com/pyprojectx/pyprojectx.git
cd pyprojectx
./pw build

• Use your local pyprojectx copy in another project: set the path to pyprojectx in the PYPROJECTX_PACKAGE environment variable and create a symlink to the wrapper script.

# Linux, Mac
export PYPROJECTX_PACKAGE=path/to/pyprojectx
ln -s $PYPROJECTX_PACKAGE/src/pyprojectx/wrapper/pw.py pw
# windows
set PYPROJECTX_PACKAGE=path/to/pyprojectx
mklink pw %PYPROJECTX_PACKAGE%\src\pyprojectx\wrapper\pw.py
# or copy the wrapper script if you can't create a symlink on windows
copy %PYPROJECTX_PACKAGE%\src\pyprojectx\wrapper\pw.py pw