Deploying a release binary

[marcomq]

This is just an issue to collect ideas on how to deploy a release binary.

When using RustPython (default), there is no need to perform any extra step for the release build. RustPython is linked statically and therefore also runs fine on Android and iOS.

PyO3 may require that you also need the python dll on the target system where the installer is executed later. There is a documentation for this here:
https://pyo3.rs/main/building-and-distribution.html#embedding-python-in-rust
To check which libraries are linked dynamically and need to be available on the target system, you can following command on Macos

otool -L tauri_app # on linux you would run "ldd tauri_app"

This output may then contain following line:

/opt/homebrew/opt/python@3.13/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/Python (compatibility version 3.13.0, current version 3.13.0)

This is showing the location and version of the python dynamic library. On the next run, it will expect the library on the same location.
In that case, you may be required to install python 3.13 with homebrew on the target system.

On windows, the dll may also be in the same folder as the executable.

[Qingbao]

Is that possible to put the complete .venv into the tauri app while deploying the release binary using PYO3? In this case we don't need any share lib in the target machine.

[marcomq]

Is that possible to put the complete .venv into the tauri app while deploying the release binary using PYO3? In this case we don't need any share lib in the target machine.

Probably yes. Sounds like a good idea. You just need to configure PyO3 that is links to the libpython in the .venv folder.
Let me know if this worked for you.

I also just added some example on how to link libpython statically using pyoxidizer. Works fine on MacOs. I still need to check if this also works on windows/linux.

[Qingbao]

Thanks. I've tried to build a target on Window but that didn't seem to work. The target bundles (msi/exe) do not have python3xx.dll.
Will need to figure out how that happened.
Are you able to run the app in another Mac or Linux machine without python installed?

[marcomq]

Are you able to run the app in another Mac or Linux machine without python installed?

No - I don't know how to install apps on another machine without creating an expensive apple developer account. Apple is kind of very annoying installing self-made apps. But the linker didn't show any reference to python.

[MoNaEcho]

It notwork in windows ,

I just want to publish the python interpreter and the dependency packages together in the installation file.
tauri-plugin-python = { version = "0.3.6", features = ["pyo3"] }

An error occurred during compilation. The error happened when importing a third-party library
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright, BrowserType

[Qingbao]

I think you will need to install the dep instead of using venv, what was the error message?

[Qingbao]

Hi, I found a way to embed python inside the tauri application without using pyoxidizer or any other linking dependencies. Please refer to my project: https://github.com/Qingbao/tauri-agent
The core logic behind this is to download the embed python and put it into the project and setup the python path before launching the tauri application by:

// Check if environment is already set
let already_bootstrapped = env::var("APP_BOOTSTRAPPED").unwrap_or_default() == "1";

if !already_bootstrapped {
    let exe_path = env::current_exe().expect("Cannot get exe path");
    let exe_dir = exe_path.parent().expect("No exe dir");
    let python_home = exe_dir.join("src-python").join("python-embedded");

    let python_home_str = python_home.to_str().expect("Invalid UTF-8");
    let old_path = env::var("PATH").unwrap_or_default();

    let new_path = format!("{};{}", python_home_str, old_path);

    println!("🔁 Relaunching with embedded Python environment...");

    // Relaunch the app with env vars set
    let mut child = Command::new(&exe_path)
        .env("PYTHONHOME", python_home_str)
        .env("PATH", &new_path)
        .env("APP_BOOTSTRAPPED", "1") // mark that it's already relaunched
        .spawn()
        .expect("Failed to relaunch with env");

    std::process::exit(child.wait().expect("Failed to wait").code().unwrap_or(1));
}

Let me know if you have any questions.

/Qingbao

[b-smiley]

Hi, I found a way to embed python inside the tauri application without using pyoxidizer or any other linking dependencies. Please refer to my project: https://github.com/Qingbao/tauri-agent
The core logic behind this is to download the embed python and put it into the project and setup the python path before launching the tauri application by:

// Check if environment is already set
let already_bootstrapped = env::var("APP_BOOTSTRAPPED").unwrap_or_default() == "1";

if !already_bootstrapped {
    let exe_path = env::current_exe().expect("Cannot get exe path");
    let exe_dir = exe_path.parent().expect("No exe dir");
    let python_home = exe_dir.join("src-python").join("python-embedded");

    let python_home_str = python_home.to_str().expect("Invalid UTF-8");
    let old_path = env::var("PATH").unwrap_or_default();

    let new_path = format!("{};{}", python_home_str, old_path);

    println!("🔁 Relaunching with embedded Python environment...");

    // Relaunch the app with env vars set
    let mut child = Command::new(&exe_path)
        .env("PYTHONHOME", python_home_str)
        .env("PATH", &new_path)
        .env("APP_BOOTSTRAPPED", "1") // mark that it's already relaunched
        .spawn()
        .expect("Failed to relaunch with env");

    std::process::exit(child.wait().expect("Failed to wait").code().unwrap_or(1));
}

Let me know if you have any questions.

/Qingbao

This is a great solution to the Python interpreter dependency! I wonder if it is possible to make main.py a binary with this method. Some projects using this plugin will want their source code closed-source.