---
title: Building and publishing a package
description: A guide to using uv to build and publish Python packages to a package index, like PyPI.
---

# Building and publishing a package

uv supports building Python packages into source and binary distributions via `uv build` and
uploading them to a registry with `uv publish`.

## Preparing your project for packaging

Before attempting to publish your project, you'll want to make sure it's ready to be packaged for
distribution.

If your project does not include a `[build-system]` definition in the `pyproject.toml`, uv will not
build it by default. This means that your project may not be ready for distribution. Read more about
the effect of declaring a build system in the
[project concept](../concepts/projects/config.md#build-systems) documentation.

!!! note

    If you have internal packages that you do not want to be published, you can mark them as
    private:

    ```toml
    [project]
    classifiers = ["Private :: Do Not Upload"]
    ```

    This setting makes PyPI reject your uploaded package from publishing. It does not affect
    security or privacy settings on alternative registries.

    We also recommend only generating [per-project PyPI API tokens](https://pypi.org/help/#apitoken):
    Without a PyPI token matching the project, it can't be accidentally published.

## Building your package

Build your package with `uv build`:

```console
$ uv build
```

By default, `uv build` will build the project in the current directory, and place the built
artifacts in a `dist/` subdirectory.

Alternatively, `uv build <SRC>` will build the package in the specified directory, while
`uv build --package <PACKAGE>` will build the specified package within the current workspace.

!!! info

    By default, `uv build` respects `tool.uv.sources` when resolving build dependencies from the
    `build-system.requires` section of the `pyproject.toml`. When publishing a package, we recommend
    running `uv build --no-sources` to ensure that the package builds correctly when `tool.uv.sources`
    is disabled, as is the case when using other build tools, like [`pypa/build`](https://github.com/pypa/build).

## Updating your version

The `uv version` command provides conveniences for updating the version of your package before you
publish it.
[See the project docs for reading your package's version](./projects.md#managing-version).

To update to an exact version, provide it as a positional argument:

```console
$ uv version 1.0.0
hello-world 0.7.0 => 1.0.0
```

To preview the change without updating the `pyproject.toml`, use the `--dry-run` flag:

```console
$ uv version 2.0.0 --dry-run
hello-world 1.0.0 => 2.0.0
$ uv version
hello-world 1.0.0
```

To increase the version of your package semantics, use the `--bump` option:

```console
$ uv version --bump minor
hello-world 1.2.3 => 1.3.0
```

The `--bump` option supports the following common version components: `major`, `minor`, `patch`,
`stable`, `alpha`, `beta`, `rc`, `post`, and `dev`. When provided more than once, the components
will be applied in order, from largest (`major`) to smallest (`dev`).

To move from a stable to pre-release version, bump one of the major, minor, or patch components in
addition to the pre-release component:

```console
$ uv version --bump patch --bump beta
hello-world 1.3.0 => 1.3.1b1
$ uv version --bump major --bump alpha
hello-world 1.3.0 => 2.0.0a1
```

When moving from a pre-release to a new pre-release version, just bump the relevant pre-release
component:

```console
uv version --bump beta
hello-world 1.3.0b1 => 1.3.1b2
```

When moving from a pre-release to a stable version, the `stable` option can be used to clear the
pre-release component:

```console
uv version --bump stable
hello-world 1.3.1b2 => 1.3.1
```

!!! info

    By default, when `uv version` modifies the project it will perform a lock and sync. To
    prevent locking and syncing, use `--frozen`, or,  to just prevent syncing, use `--no-sync`.

## Publishing your package

Publish your package with `uv publish`:

```console
$ uv publish
```

Set a PyPI token with `--token` or `UV_PUBLISH_TOKEN`, or set a username with `--username` or
`UV_PUBLISH_USERNAME` and password with `--password` or `UV_PUBLISH_PASSWORD`. For publishing to
PyPI from GitHub Actions, you don't need to set any credentials. Instead,
[add a trusted publisher to the PyPI project](https://docs.pypi.org/trusted-publishers/adding-a-publisher/).

!!! note

    PyPI does not support publishing with username and password anymore, instead you need to
    generate a token. Using a token is equivalent to setting `--username __token__` and using the
    token as password.

If you're using a custom index through `[[tool.uv.index]]`, add `publish-url` and use
`uv publish --index <name>`. For example:

```toml
[[tool.uv.index]]
name = "testpypi"
url = "https://test.pypi.org/simple/"
publish-url = "https://test.pypi.org/legacy/"
explicit = true
```

!!! note

    When using `uv publish --index <name>`, the `pyproject.toml` must be present, i.e., you need to
    have a checkout step in a publish CI job.

Even though `uv publish` retries failed uploads, it can happen that publishing fails in the middle,
with some files uploaded and some files still missing. With PyPI, you can retry the exact same
command, existing identical files will be ignored. With other registries, use
`--check-url <index url>` with the index URL (not the publishing URL) the packages belong to. When
using `--index`, the index URL is used as check URL. uv will skip uploading files that are identical
to files in the registry, and it will also handle raced parallel uploads. Note that existing files
need to match exactly with those previously uploaded to the registry, this avoids accidentally
publishing source distribution and wheels with different contents for the same version.

## Installing your package

Test that the package can be installed and imported with `uv run`:

```console
$ uv run --with <PACKAGE> --no-project -- python -c "import <PACKAGE>"
```

The `--no-project` flag is used to avoid installing the package from your local project directory.

!!! tip

    If you have recently installed the package, you may need to include the
    `--refresh-package <PACKAGE>` option to avoid using a cached version of the package.

## Next steps

To learn more about publishing packages, check out the
[PyPA guides](https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/section-build-and-publish/) on building
and publishing.

Or, read on for [guides](./integration/index.md) on integrating uv with other software.
