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

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 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:

❯ uv publish --publish-url https://test.pypi.org/legacy/ --token "$TEST_PYPI_TOKEN"

When this first ran for 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.