How to determine the name of an egg for a Python package on Github?

Question

I know I can install with

$ pip install -e git+https://git.repo/some_pkg#egg=SomePackage

but -- when I'm trying to use somebody else's package -- how do I determine what the name of the egg is?

Answer 1

Look at the git repo, find the setup.py, setup.cfg or pyproject.toml file in the root and find what name has been set.

• In setup.py, look for the name keyword in the setup() function call.
• In setup.cfg, look for the name entry under the [metadata] section.
• If there is only a pyproject.toml file, then look for a [tool.poetry] or [tool.flit.metadata] or [project] section, and the name entry under that section. (Which section exactly depends on the packaging tool used; flint and poetry expect different sections and there may be other projects using pyproject.toml to create Python packages in future).

For example, the Pyramid project has a setup.py file, which has:

setup(
  name='pyramid',

so you'd use:

$ pip install -e git+https://github.com/Pylons/pyramid.git#egg=pyramid

Or, if you look at the FastAPI repository, then you'd find a pyproject.toml file with:

[tool.flit.metadata]
module = "fastapi"

and so you'd use

$ pip install -e git+https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi.git#egg=fastapi