---
id: pkg-about
version: "2.4.3"
license: Zlib
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# pkg-about — Unified access to Python package metadata at runtime.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 291.0K/mo

## What it is and what it does

pkg_about provides a single interface to read Python package metadata at runtime, abstracting away differences between build systems and project layouts. It exposes three main functions: about(package_name) to query any installed package, about() to query the current package, and about_from_setup() to read metadata directly from pyproject.toml or setup.cfg. The package depends on typing-extensions, packaging, and build to handle the complexity of modern Python packaging standards.

This is useful when your code needs to inspect package versions, authors, URLs, or other metadata without hardcoding values or duplicating information already stored in project configuration. It works across CPython, PyPy, and GraalPy on Python 3.11 through 3.15, and has been in production use since 2021.

Use it for:

- Embed the current package's version or author info in CLI help text or error messages without duplicating setup.cfg or pyproject.toml.
- Query installed dependencies' metadata (license, homepage, version) for compliance audits or dependency reports.
- Build introspection tools that need to read package metadata uniformly regardless of how the package was built or installed.
- Populate __version__ or __about__ module attributes from canonical package metadata at import time.
- Generate dynamic documentation or changelogs that reference package metadata retrieved at runtime.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Retrieves Python package metadata at runtime in a uniform way, regardless of build backend or project structure, with functions to query any installed package or the current package's metadata.

Yes. Low install friction, active maintenance, permissive license, no known vulnerabilities, and a clear use case for any project that needs to read package metadata at runtime without reimplementing the logic. Install it if you're building tools, CLIs, or libraries that need to introspect package information.

## Install

pip install pkg-about
uv add pkg-about
poetry add pkg-about

## Installing pkg-about

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel and only three runtime dependencies (typing-extensions, packaging, build). Active maintenance with a recent release 74 days ago; requires Python 3.11 or higher.

License in practice: Licensed under Zlib (permissive), which allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions—suitable for most projects.

Quickstart:

pip install pkg-about

import pkg_about
metadata = pkg_about.about("pip")
print(metadata.__uri__)

Requires Python 3.11 or higher.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the metadata retrieval works consistently across all modern build backends (setuptools, poetry, hatch, etc.)
- Performance characteristics when querying metadata for packages with large or complex metadata
- Whether about() without arguments reliably detects the calling package in all contexts (e.g., installed vs. editable installs)

## Package facts

- License: Zlib (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 291.0K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

python package metadata runtime, get package version info, access package metadata, package introspection, runtime package info, pyproject.toml metadata, package about information, introspection, packaging-tools

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/pkg-about) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/pkg-about/)