A CLI for AWS CodeArtifact - The Missing Tool for Your Python Packages

AWS CodeArtifact is a fantastic service for managing private Python packages, ensuring your proprietary code remains secure and separate from the public PyPI registry. However, the process of configuring your local environment, building a package, and publishing it can involve a series of manual, and often tricky, AWS CLI commands.

To streamline this workflow, I developed py-aws-code-artifact-tool, a simple command-line interface that wraps these steps into three easy-to-remember commands.

The Challenge: Manual CodeArtifact Steps

Publishing a Python package to CodeArtifact typically requires you to:

1. Log in to the correct AWS account.
2. Fetch an authorization token from CodeArtifact.
3. Configure pip or twine to use the CodeArtifact repository URL with the new token.
4. Build your package (sdist and wheel).
5. Finally, publish the package using twine.

This process is not only tedious but also error-prone. A single misstep, like an expired token or incorrect domain, can lead to frustrating authentication errors.

A Simpler Way: The py-aws-code-artifact-tool

This tool simplifies the entire process into a dedicated CLI with three main commands:

• configure: Sets up your AWS CodeArtifact credentials.
• build: Builds your Python package in sdist and wheel formats.
• publish: Publishes the package to your configured CodeArtifact repository.

Step 1: Configure Your Environment

First, run the configure command. The tool will prompt you for your AWS CodeArtifact domain, repository name, and AWS profile. It then automatically fetches a fresh authorization token and configures your local environment.

aws-code-artifact configure

Step 2: Build Your Package

Next, navigate to your Python project's root directory and run the build command. This command simply runs python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel to generate your distribution files.

aws-code-artifact build

Step 3: Publish to CodeArtifact

Finally, run the publish command. The tool uses the credentials from the configure step to upload your newly built package to your private repository.

aws-code-artifact publish

And that's it. Your package is now securely hosted in AWS CodeArtifact, ready to be installed in your other projects.

Getting Started

py-aws-code-artifact-tool is available as an open-source project. To get started, clone the repository and install it from the source.

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/geekcafe/py-aws-code-artifact-tool.git

# Install the tool
cd py-aws-code-artifact-tool
pip install .

Conclusion

py-aws-code-artifact-tool was built to solve a common pain point for Python developers working with AWS. By simplifying the authentication and publishing process, it saves time and reduces the friction of using a private package repository.

Check out the project on GitHub, and I welcome any feedback or contributions to make it even better.