What is `pyproject.toml`?
Abstract
What is pyproject.toml and where did it come from? Why does the Python community need another config file? We’ll answer these questions with a short journey of Python’s tooling landscape and a demystification of the two PEPs (517 & 518) that brought pyproject.toml to life.
Description
The Python ecosystem has been plagued (or gifted, depending on your perspective) with a host of configuration files – from setup.py to setup.cfg to MANIFEST.in. Not to mention each package’s own .ini or .yml configuration file. So why do we need another configuration file?
To answer this question, we need to start with the history of Python packaging. From there we’ll move on to the current state of Python packaging with the existing incumbent builtin build tools, disutils and setuptools. Knowing the build processes of these packaging utilities will help us understand the motivation for PEP-517 and PEP-518 and the inception of pyproject.toml.
We will then explore popular packages that use the pyproject.toml, some of which include black, poetry, and flit.
Bio
Steph is a software engineer with six years of experience and a formal education in computational linguistics. She is also a core contributor to Poetry, a volunteer mentor for Frauenloop, an international conference speaker, and a competitive climber.