Add Publish A Package To A Test Env As A Dry Run as a Python TIL

python/publish-a-package-to-a-test-env-as-a-dry-run.md

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+# Publish A Package To A Test Env As A Dry Run
+
+As I was preparing to register a new Python package with PyPI and release my
+first version cut, I felt like there were a lot of unknowns. Is my package's
+name going to be valid? How will the package appear in PyPI? Did I configure
+everything correctly? Etc.
+
+It turns out that PyPI has a great way of answering a lot of these questions.
+There is a [`test.pypi.org`](https://test.pypi.org/) site that parrots the
+publishing flow of `pypi.org`. This makes for a great target to do a dry-run
+publishing of a package.
+
+First, I had to go through the same registration flow and 2FA setup as when I
+registered with `pypi.org`.
+
+Second, I deviated from my tag and CI-triggered publishing flow by instead doing
+a one-off run of the `uv publish` command. That requires an API token which I
+generated in the web UI for `test.pypi.org`. I added that to my env as
+`TEST_PYPI_TOKEN`.
+
+I then ran the following command:
+
+```bash
+❯ uv publish --publish-url https://test.pypi.org/legacy/ --token "$TEST_PYPI_TOKEN"
+```
+
+When this first ran for [`py-vmt`](https://github.com/jbranchaud/py-vmt), I got
+an error back from the publishing API telling me the package name is too similar
+to an existing package. I then had to make a few updates across the project to
+rename the published package name to `visualmode-tracker`. Running the `uv
+publish` command again worked with the updated name.
+
+I was then able to go into the web UI and verify everything looked as expected.
+
+I now have the confidence to publish this thing for real to `pypi.org`.