whool

A standards-compliant Python build backend to package individual Odoo addons.

Quick start

Create a file named pyproject.toml next to the addon's __manifest__.py with the following content:

[build-system]
requires = ["whool"]
build-backend = "whool.buildapi"

💡 you can use the pipx run whool init command to do that.

When that is done you can work with the addon as any regular python project. Notably

• pipx run build --wheel --outdir /tmp/dist/ or pip wheel --no-deps --wheel-dir /tmp/dist/ . will create a wheel.
• Assuming odoo has been installed with pip in the current Python environment (for instance with pip install --editable ./odoo), pip install --editable . will install the addon and its dependencies (which it will pull from PyPI) and make it available in the Odoo addons path without the need to modify Odoo's --addons-path option.

Files included in the distribution packages

whool will package all the files that are under git control and ignore everything else.

📝 TODO: explain what is included in a sdist vs wheel, and how building from a sdist works.

Version number of the generated packages

The version of the generated distribution packages is influenced by the git commit history in the following way.

📝 TODO: elaborate (see setuptools-odoo docs in the meantime)

Configuration

The following options can be set in pyproject.toml:

📝 TODO: explain this (see setuptools-odoo docs in the meantime)

[tool.whool]
depends_override = {}
external_dependencies_override = {}
post_version_strategy_override = "..."
odoo_series_override = "..."

If set, the following environment variables override the corresponding pyproject.toml options:

• WHOOL_POST_VERSION_STRATEGY_OVERRIDE

Standard compliance

whool is compliant with PEP 517 and PEP 660, so it is compatible with all Python build frontends, and supports editable installs.

[!NOTE] Editable install require support for symbolic links, which are available on most platforms but may not be enabled by default on Windows.

It supports the optional prepare_metadata_for_build_wheel and prepare_metadata_for_build_editable hooks, for faster metadata preparation.

Comparison to setuptools-odoo

This project is the successor of setuptools-odoo, as a standard-compliant Python build backend.

The main expected benefit of whool over setuptools-odoo is that the setup directory and setup.py files are replaced by a pyproject.toml file at the root of each addon. It is less intrusive, and does not need symbolic links for regular operation.

setuptools-odoo relied on little documented hooks and deprecated extension mechanisms of setuptools, which was progressively causing compatibility issues.

setuptools-odoo provided a mechanism to package a multi-addon project. This is now covered by the hatch-odoo project.

Development

To release and publish to PyPI:

• Update the changelog by running towncrier build --version X.Y.Z.
• Commit and push the changes.
• Go to GitHub and create a release with a tag vX.Y.Z.

The release will be uploaded to PyPI automatically.