Building & publishing artifacts
P35.build-publish.02 · Audience: guest, it-ml, language-pro · Prerequisites: Dependencies, lockfiles & environments
pip install wordcount downloads a wheel and unzips it. That wheel isn't
magic — it's a ZIP with a fixed layout you can open and read. This module has you
inspect one, so "what does my package actually ship?" is a question you can
answer, not guess.
ⓘ Concept: Two artifacts, one built, one to build from
.whl) is already built — pip just unpacks it into place. An sdist is a source tarball a machine builds from. Pure-Python code ships one py3-none-any wheel that runs anywhere; compiled code ships many, one per interpreter and platform. You publish both so every consumer is covered.Why it matters — A wheel installs with no build step; an sdist is the source fallback. Knowing which is which is how you reason about install speed and compatibility.
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🎓 Practice ladder
2 graded rungs · ~23 minInspect a wheel's metadata and manifest from its bytes, then reason about building and publishing in an interview-style prompt.
Rung 1 — inspect a wheel
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Rung 2 — building & publishing (interview)
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You can build and read an artifact. The last track ties the loop together — automating the checks so quality doesn't depend on anyone remembering.