# Building distributions

To distribute your project to others (e.g., to upload it to an index like PyPI), you'll need to
build it into a distributable format.

Python projects are typically distributed as both source distributions (sdists) and binary
distributions (wheels). The former is typically a `.tar.gz` or `.zip` file containing the project's
source code along with some additional metadata, while the latter is a `.whl` file containing
pre-built artifacts that can be installed directly.

!!! important

    When using `uv build`, uv acts as a [build frontend](https://peps.python.org/pep-0517/#terminology-and-goals)
    and only determines the Python version to use and invokes the build backend. The details of
    the builds, such as the included files and the distribution filenames, are determined by the build
    backend, as defined in [`[build-system]`](./config.md#build-systems). Information about build
    configuration can be found in the respective tool's documentation.

## Using `uv build`

`uv build` can be used to build both source distributions and binary distributions for your project.
By default, `uv build` will build the project in the current directory, and place the built
artifacts in a `dist/` subdirectory:

```console
$ uv build
$ ls dist/
example-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl
example-0.1.0.tar.gz
```

You can build the project in a different directory by providing a path to `uv build`, e.g.,
`uv build path/to/project`.

`uv build` will first build a source distribution, and then build a binary distribution (wheel) from
that source distribution.

You can limit `uv build` to building a source distribution with `uv build --sdist`, a binary
distribution with `uv build --wheel`, or build both distributions from source with
`uv build --sdist --wheel`.

## Build constraints

`uv build` accepts `--build-constraint`, which can be used to constrain the versions of any build
requirements during the build process. When coupled with `--require-hashes`, uv will enforce that
the requirement used to build the project match specific, known hashes, for reproducibility.

For example, given the following `constraints.txt`:

```text
setuptools==68.2.2 --hash=sha256:b454a35605876da60632df1a60f736524eb73cc47bbc9f3f1ef1b644de74fd2a
```

Running the following would build the project with the specified version of `setuptools`, and verify
that the downloaded `setuptools` distribution matches the specified hash:

```console
$ uv build --build-constraint constraints.txt --require-hashes
```