Github Action for building executables with PyInstaller

To build your application, you need to specify where your source code is via the path argument, this defaults to src.

The source code directory should have your .spec file that PyInstaller generates. If you don't have one, you'll need to run PyInstaller once locally to generate it. Also if you have another program .spec file you can set specific pyinstaller .spec file by spec: <YOUR_SPEC_FILE_NAME>

If the src folder has a requirements.txt file, the packages will be installed into the environment before PyInstaller runs. This can also be specified via the requirements argument.

If you wish to specify a package mirror, this is possibly via the pypi_url and/or the pypi_index_url, these defaults are:

• pypi_url = https://pypi.python.org/
• pypi_index_url = https://pypi.python.org/simple

If you are using the default Python gitignore file, ensure to remove .spec.

This action uses Wine to emulate windows inside Docker for packaging POSIX executables.

The pkg_resources hook for setuptools>=v70.0.0 is currently missing in pyinstaller 5.13, which is used in this Github Action.

To address this, a future version of this project will incorporate pyinstaller>=6.7 to resolve the issue. However, in the interim, it is necessary to manually include a hiddenimport to the .spec file.

Include hiddenimports=['pkg_resources.extern'], in your .spec file, something like this:

a = Analysis(

    hiddenimports=['pkg_resources.extern'],
)

For further assistance, please refer to the following issues:

• #51
• pyinstaller/pyinstaller#8554

There's an example repository where you can see this action in action: https://github.com/JackMcKew/pyinstaller-action-windows-example.

Include this in your .github/workflows/main.yaml:

- name: PyInstaller Windows
  uses: JackMcKew/pyinstaller-action-windows@main
  with:
    path: src

Here is an entire workflow for:

• Packaging an application with PyInstaller
• Uploading the packaged executable as an artifact

name: Package Application with Pyinstaller

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main ]

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Package Application
      uses: JackMcKew/pyinstaller-action-windows@main
      with:
        path: src

    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: name-of-artifact
        path: src/dist/windows

If you get this error: OSError: [WinError 123] Invalid name: '/tmp\\*', ensure your path is correctly configured, the default is src.

A big thank you to all the contributors over at https://github.com/cdrx/docker-pyinstaller, this action is just a modified version of their docker container, thank you!