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Building & Packaging

The easiest way to build and package ApplePy projects:

pip install applepy-cli    # or: uv pip install applepy-cli
Command What it does
applepy develop Build Swift + install into current env
applepy build Build a distributable wheel (.whl)
applepy publish Upload to PyPI 
# Build and install for development
applepy develop

# Build a wheel for distribution
applepy build

# Publish to PyPI (or TestPyPI with --test)
applepy publish

Manual Build with SPM

ApplePy uses Swift Package Manager. The ApplePyFFI system library target uses pkg-config to find Python headers and libraries automatically.

Standard build

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(python3 -c 'import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_config_var("LIBPC"))') \
  swift build

Building for Python import

Python extensions need the .dylib renamed to .so:

cp .build/debug/libMyLib.dylib mylib/mylib.so

SPM Plugins

ApplePyBuild (Build Tool)

Auto-runs during swift build. Handles Python detection via pkg-config.

ApplePyBundle (Command Plugin)

Renames the built .dylib/.so to CPython-compatible naming:

swift package plugin applepy-bundle --target MyExtension

This copies libMyExtension.dylib → dist/myextension.cpython-3XX-PLATFORM.so.

Wheel Packaging

The Tools/applepy-pack.py script generates PEP 427 wheels:

python3 Tools/applepy-pack.py \
    --name mylib \
    --version 0.1.0 \
    --so dist/mylib.cpython-313-darwin.so

# Produces: dist/mylib-0.1.0-cp313-cp313-macosx_14_0_arm64.whl
pip install dist/mylib-*.whl

Environment for mise-managed Python

If you use mise to manage Python, set these before building and testing:

export PYTHONHOME=$(python3 -c 'import sys; print(sys.prefix)')
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(python3 -c 'import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_config_var("LIBDIR"))')
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(python3 -c 'import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_config_var("LIBPC"))')