entrypoints

Discover and load entry points from installed packages.

entrypoints Permissive license DORMANT ★ 77 v0.4 released 2022-02-02

Install

entrypoints on PyPI

pip

pip install entrypoints

uv

uv add entrypoints

poetry

poetry add entrypoints

Package facts

License	not declared (permissive)
Python support	supports the current Python release (>=3.6)
Install friction	low — pure-Python wheel
Runtime dependencies	none
Maintenance	dormant — 1,653 days since the last release
Last repo commit	2024-12-03
First released	2015-05-15
Popularity	one of the top 1,000 most-downloaded packages on PyPI (30-day window, as of 2026-08-13)
Known vulnerabilities	none known (OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-13)

Evidence: entrypoints-0.4-py3-none-any.whl

License :: OSI Approved :: MIT LicenseProgramming Language :: Python :: 3

About entrypoints

from the package's own PyPI description — quoted content, verbatim

This package is in maintenance-only mode. New code should use the importlib.metadata module <https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.metadata.html>_ in the Python standard library to find and load entry points.

Entry points are a way for Python packages to advertise objects with some common interface. The most common examples are console_scripts entry points, which define shell commands by identifying a Python function to run.

Groups of entry points, such as console_scripts, point to objects with similar interfaces. An application might use a group to find its plugins, or multiple groups if it has different kinds of plugins.

The entrypoints module contains functions to find and load entry points. You can install it from PyPI with pip install entrypoints.

To advertise entry points when distributing a package, see entry_points in the Python Packaging User Guide <https://packaging.python.org/guides/distributing-packages-using-setuptools/#entry-points>_.

The pkg_resources module distributed with setuptools provides a way to discover entrypoints as well, but it contains other functionality unrelated to entrypoint discovery, and it does a...

Read as markdown · JSON record · Source repository · Homepage · Docs

AI interpretation — verify before relying

AI-generated interpretation of the package facts above; every digit, version, license, or vulnerability id it cites is grounded in the facts already shown on this page

Discovers and loads entry points from installed Python packages—a lightweight alternative to pkg_resources for finding plugins and console scripts without scanning all installed packages at import time.

Low friction; pure Python wheel with no runtime dependencies. However, the package is dormant (last release 2022-02-02, 1653 days ago) and explicitly in maintenance-only mode—the description recommends using importlib.metadata from the standard library for new code instead.

MIT license (permissive) places no restrictions on use, modification, or distribution.

Usage

pip install entrypoints
import entrypoints
eps = entrypoints.get_group_all('console_scripts')
for ep in eps:
    print(ep.name, ep.load())

Requires Python ≥3.6; package is in maintenance-only mode and new code should prefer importlib.metadata from the standard library.

Verdict: entrypoints is a stable, permissively licensed, dependency-free package for entry-point discovery that installs cleanly. However, it is dormant (last release over 4 years ago) and explicitly superseded by importlib.metadata in Python's standard library—suitable only for legacy codebases or environments where standard library alternatives are unavailable.

Needs verification

Whether importlib.metadata (available since Python 3.8) covers all use cases that entrypoints currently handles in production systems.
Current adoption rate and whether any major projects still depend on entrypoints rather than migrating to the standard library.

entry points discoveryplugin loader pythonconsole scripts entry pointsload installed package pluginsentrypoint discoverylightweight pkg_resources alternative