2025-09-06 –, Lecture Hall (5.002)
There is a broad range of possibilities when packaging Python with Nix.
The amount of Python formats alone can be overwhelming: requirements.txt, setup.py & pyproject.toml, not to mention Conda!
This talk aims to explain Python packaging with Nix, focusing on pyproject.nix & uv2nix, but I will also talk about other approaches and their trade-offs.
We'll start off with a short primer on the different Python packaging formats & methods while explaining a few of the things that make Python packaging particularly murky & difficult.
Then we'll go through a range of Nix packaging possibilities, starting with using plain nixpkgs & culminating in pyproject.nix & uv2nix.
Along the way the pros and cons of each will be explored and what approach to use when and where.
Freelance Nix consultant and author of many tools in the Python/Nix space such as poetry2nix, pyproject.nix and uv2nix.
In nixpkgs he mostly enjoys working on lower level plumbing such as lib & stdenv, but also maintains Emacs & it's package ecosystem.
Python developer in a previous life.