Flit is a simple way to put Python packages and modules on PyPI.

$ pip install flit

Flit requires Python 3 and therefor needs to be installed using the Python 3 version of PIP. On some platforms (including Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora) this means that you'll have to use the pip3 command instead to get the correct interpreter version.

Python 2 modules can be distributed using Flit, but need to be importable on Python 3 without errors.

Say you're writing a module foobar — either as a single file foobar.py, or as a directory — and you want to distribute it.

1. Make sure that foobar's docstring starts with a one-line summary of what the module is, and that it has a __version__:

   """An amazing sample package!"""
   
   __version__ = '0.1'

2. Create a file flit.ini next to the module. It should look like this:

   [metadata]
   module=foobar
   author=Sir Robin
   author-email[email protected]
   home-page=https://github.com/sirrobin/foobar
   
   # If you want command line scripts, this is how to declare them.
   # If not, you can leave this section out completely.
   [scripts]
   # foobar:main means the script will do: from foobar import main; main()
   foobar=foobar:main

   You can use flit init to easily create a basic flit.ini file for your package.

   Besides the details shown above, there are other fields you can add—see the flit.ini page of the docs.

3. Install flit if you don't already have it:

   pip install flit
   

4. Run this command to upload your code to PyPI:

   flit publish
   

To install a package locally for development, run:

flit install [--symlink] [--python path/to/python]

Flit packages a single importable module or package at a time, using the import name as the name on PyPI. All subpackages and data files within a package are included automatically.

See Flit's documentation for more information.