This will be an opinionated, streamlined recap of the state of Python packaging, including hosting private packages, and Python services deployment.

The subjects I intent to cover:

• various package types
• dealing with package dependencies
• various options for hosting private packages
• building and deploying Python services

The subjects I will specifically not cover:

• Python 2, universal py2.py3 packages, etc. That ship has sailed a decade ago
• Tools for standalone executables (such as PyInstaller & py2exe)

This is not meant to replace in depth sources like Python Packaging User Guide, but rather give you a quick overview of most relevant info. While my primary focus is on Python (micro)services in cloud, this should be useful for everyone.

"In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one — and preferably only one — obvious way to do it."
— "The Zen of Python"

I was recently asked for recommendation for best practices for build tools we should use company wide. To my surprise since the last time I took a deep dive into the subject, not only there was no consensus, but the number of specifications, build tools, and deployment managers has more than doubled. A new one has just been released as I was researching this subject. Thus the answer to this question has never been more complex and contentious.

Back in 2017 I wrote an extensive two part blog post on Python packaging and releasing private code. A lot has improved since then, a lot of issues that I mentioned that would be solved in the near future have already been implemented, some of the issues become moot. So while it was decent resource back then, it is obsolete now, and this document addresses that by being current, and attempting to be somewhat future-proof by describing aspirational goals set by current PEP and PyPA standards, the way things should be done, rather than then things often are done. That being said, even though these are aspirational goals, all of this is already fully implemented and works as described.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.