---
id: setupmeta
version: "3.9.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# setupmeta — Simplify your setup.py

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 912.5K/mo

## What it is and what it does

setupmeta is a setuptools plugin that eliminates boilerplate from setup.py by automatically discovering and extracting project metadata from conventional locations. Instead of manually specifying author, version, dependencies, and description, you provide minimal explicit configuration and setupmeta infers the rest by scanning your project structure, README files, git tags, and module docstrings. It supports three git-based versioning modes (distance, post, build-id) that compute version numbers from git history, and provides CLI commands to inspect what was deduced, bump versions, and validate metadata.

The package is designed for projects that follow Python packaging conventions: it looks for entry points in entry_points.ini, dependencies in requirements.txt or requirements.in, long descriptions in README files, and metadata constants in __init__.py or __version__.py. Everything you explicitly state in setup() takes precedence, so you can override any auto-detected value. It requires only setuptools as a runtime dependency and supports Python 3.7 through 3.14.

Use it for:

- Reduce setup.py from dozens of lines to a minimal declaration by auto-extracting metadata from your project structure.
- Implement tag-based versioning where version numbers are computed from git history without manual version bumps in code.
- Validate that your project has all required metadata fields using the explain and check commands.
- Automate version bumping and git tagging via the version command instead of manually editing version strings.
- Migrate an existing project to setupmeta by gradually replacing explicit setup() arguments with auto-detection.

## Worth the install?

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

Reduces boilerplate in setup.py by auto-detecting project metadata from conventional file locations and git tags, then generating version numbers based on git history.

Yes. setupmeta is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, minimal dependencies, and solves a genuine pain point in Python packaging. It's well-suited for projects that follow standard conventions. Install it if you want to eliminate setup.py boilerplate and adopt git-based versioning; skip it only if your project has highly non-standard metadata or you prefer explicit control over every setup.py detail.

## Install

pip install setupmeta
uv add setupmeta
poetry add setupmeta

## Installing setupmeta

Before you install: Low friction install with only setuptools as a runtime dependency. Actively maintained with recent releases and a stable codebase.

License in practice: MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; you may use, modify, and distribute freely provided you include the license notice.

Quickstart:

pip install setupmeta

# In setup.py:
from setuptools import setup

setup(
    name="myproject",
    versioning="distance",
    setup_requires="setupmeta"
)

Requires git >= 1.8.4 if using tag-based versioning; git tags must follow the pattern v{major}.{minor}.{patch} or v{major}.{minor}.0 depending on versioning mode.

Verify before relying:

- Whether auto-detection of entry_points.ini, requirements.txt, and README files works reliably across different project layouts.
- How setupmeta handles edge cases when multiple candidate files exist (e.g., both requirements.in and requirements.txt).
- Performance impact when scanning large projects with many Python modules.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 912.5K/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

setup.py generator, python packaging automation, git-based versioning, metadata extraction, setuptools helper, reduce setup.py boilerplate, automatic version bumping, packaging, versioning, git-based

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