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The uv build backend

Note

The uv build backend is currently in preview and may change without warning.

When preview mode is not enabled, uv uses hatchling as the default build backend.

A build backend transforms a source tree (i.e., a directory) into a source distribution or a wheel. While uv supports all build backends (as specified by PEP 517), it includes a uv_build backend that integrates tightly with uv to improve performance and user experience.

The uv build backend currently only supports Python code. An alternative backend is required if you want to create a library with extension modules.

To use the uv build backend as build system in an existing project, add it to the [build-system] section in your pyproject.toml:

[build-system]
requires = ["uv_build>=0.7.8,<0.8.0"]
build-backend = "uv_build"

Important

The uv build backend follows the same versioning policy, setting an upper bound on the uv_build version ensures that the package continues to build in the future.

You can also create a new project that uses the uv build backend with uv init:

uv init --build-backend uv

uv_build is a separate package from uv, optimized for portability and small binary size. The uv command includes a copy of the build backend, so when running uv build, the same version will be used for the build backend as for the uv process. Other build frontends, such as python -m build, will choose the latest compatible uv_build version.

Modules

The default module name is the package name in lower case with dots and dashes replaced by underscores, and the default module location is under the src directory, i.e., the build backend expects to find src/<package_name>/__init__.py. These defaults can be changed with the module-name and module-root setting. The example below expects a module in the project root with PIL/__init__.py instead:

[tool.uv.build-backend]
module-name = "PIL"
module-root = ""

The build backend supports building stubs packages with a -stubs package or module name.

Include and exclude configuration

To select which files to include in the source distribution, uv first adds the included files and directories, then removes the excluded files and directories. This means that exclusions always take precedence over inclusions.

When building the source distribution, the following files and directories are included:

  • pyproject.toml
  • The module under tool.uv.build-backend.module-root, by default src/<module-name or project_name_with_underscores>/**.
  • project.license-files and project.readme.
  • All directories under tool.uv.build-backend.data.
  • All patterns from tool.uv.build-backend.source-include.

From these, tool.uv.build-backend.source-exclude and the default excludes are removed.

When building the wheel, the following files and directories are included:

  • The module under tool.uv.build-backend.module-root, by default src/<module-name or project_name_with_underscores>/**.
  • project.license-files and project.readme, as part of the project metadata.
  • Each directory under tool.uv.build-backend.data, as data directories.

From these, tool.uv.build-backend.source-exclude, tool.uv.build-backend.wheel-exclude and the default excludes are removed. The source dist excludes are applied to avoid source tree to wheel source builds including more files than source tree to source distribution to wheel build.

There are no specific wheel includes. There must only be one top level module, and all data files must either be under the module root or in the appropriate data directory. Most packages store small data in the module root alongside the source code.

Include and exclude syntax

Includes are anchored, which means that pyproject.toml includes only <project root>/pyproject.toml. For example, assets/**/sample.csv includes all sample.csv files in <project root>/assets or any child directory. To recursively include all files under a directory, use a /** suffix, e.g. src/**.

Note

For performance and reproducibility, avoid patterns without an anchor such as **/sample.csv.

Excludes are not anchored, which means that __pycache__ excludes all directories named __pycache__ and its children anywhere. To anchor a directory, use a / prefix, e.g., /dist will exclude only <project root>/dist.

All fields accepting patterns use the reduced portable glob syntax from PEP 639, with the addition that characters can be escaped with a backslash.