appimage

Zero-setup, reproducible builds.

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appimage bundles a complete Python distribution together with your application and all its dependencies into a single executable file.

• Same Python as uv: the bundled interpreter comes from python-build-standalone, the same builds uv python install uses - what you develop and test with locally is what ships in the AppImage
• Reproducible builds: two independent builds of the same project produce a byte-for-byte identical .AppImage, no configuration needed (details below)

Quick Start

pip install appimage

A pyproject.toml is all that's needed to build. If your project already has one, app, entry_point, and python version are read from [project] automatically.

# Check what will be detected before building
python -m appimage.ctl check

# Writes the AppImage to dist/myapp-x86_64.AppImage
python -m appimage.ctl

# Optionally: persist detected values to pyproject.toml to pin or adjust them
python -m appimage.ctl init

Reproducible builds

Covers bytecode compilation, file timestamps, and the appimagetool binary itself - appimage defaults to the maintained successor of the classic tool, whose bundled mksquashfs has a documented non-deterministic compression bug.

To guarantee this across machines and over time too, with every dependency hash-verified:

python -m appimage.ctl enable-reproducible   # pin the toolchain, hash-pin every
                                              # dependency, verify with a real build,
                                              # then turn reproducible = true on

See Reproducible builds for what's automatic, how to pin appimagetool/Python for cross-machine guarantees, and how to hash-verify third-party dependencies with lock.

Bundled interpreter access

The bundled Python is accessible at runtime without extracting the AppImage:

./myapp-x86_64.AppImage --python-interpreter            # interactive REPL
./myapp-x86_64.AppImage --python-interpreter script.py  # run a script
./myapp-x86_64.AppImage --python-interpreter -m pip list
./myapp-x86_64.AppImage --python-list-entry-points      # list all entry points
./myapp-x86_64.AppImage --python-entry-point other:main # switch entry point

Virtual environments

The AppImage can act as the Python interpreter for a virtual environment. Packages installed into the venv extend the bundled ones, without repackaging the AppImage:

./myapp-x86_64.AppImage --python-interpreter -m venv ~/.venv/myapp
~/.venv/myapp/bin/pip install extra-package
~/.venv/myapp/bin/myapp

When launched through a venv symlink, the bundled appimage module activates the environment automatically.

Configuration

All options go in [tool.appimage] inside pyproject.toml, and every key is optional. Lifecycle hooks, extra files, custom AppRun scripts, and environment variable injection are supported. See the full documentation for details.