Packaging & PyPI release checklist

runanywhere ships as a pybind11 native wheel (the _core extension over the rac_* C ABI) plus a pure-Python facade. Because the wheel carries a compiled extension + vendored sidecar libs (onnxruntime/sherpa), there is one wheel per platform + Python version — there is no universal wheel. The sdist is source-only.

What gets published

Artifact	Built by	Repaired by	Sidecar location
runanywhere-*-win_amd64.whl	scikit-build-core	delvewheel	runanywhere.libs/
runanywhere-*-manylinux_2_35_x86_64.whl	scikit-build-core	auditwheel	runanywhere.libs/
runanywhere-*-macosx_*_arm64.whl	scikit-build-core	delocate	runanywhere/.dylibs/
runanywhere-*.tar.gz (sdist)	scikit-build-core	—	source only (no binaries)

CI (.github/workflows/pr-build.yml) already builds + repairs + validates + hermetic-tests the wheel on python-windows, python-linux, and python-macos. The release just collects those artifacts.

Dry-run checklist (before twine upload)

1. Version — bump sdk/runanywhere-commons/VERSION; scripts/release/sync-versions.sh propagates it into pyproject.toml. Confirm pip show/__version__ match.
2. Build sdist — python -m build --sdist -o dist.
3. Build + repair each wheel on its platform (Win/Linux/macOS) via the CI recipe (build → delvewheel/auditwheel/delocate).
4. Validate the release boundary — python scripts/validate_public_packages.py --dist dist --expected-version <VERSION> (asserts: _core + sidecar libs present in the right dir per platform, no host-path leaks in text/metadata members, the sdist has sources only, version matches).
5. twine check dist/* — long-description + metadata render.
6. Fresh-venv install of each wheel and smoke it:
   • base: pip install <wheel> → import runanywhere (no fastapi/protobuf), runanywhere version, runanywhere models.
   • server: pip install "<wheel>[server]" → runanywhere serve boots; import runanywhere still pulls in no fastapi.
   • rag: pip install "<wheel>[rag]" → from runanywhere.rag import RagSession imports.
7. TestPyPI first — twine upload --repository testpypi dist/*, then pip install -i https://test.pypi.org/simple/ runanywhere in a clean venv and re-run the smoke.
8. Upload — twine upload dist/*.

Notes

• The base install is intentionally lean (numpy + stdlib only). fastapi/uvicorn live under the [server] extra; protobuf under [rag].
• sdist.include scopes the sdist to runanywhere/ + native/ so it stays a few MB (not the whole monorepo).
• CUDA / QHexRT are build-flag opt-ins (-C cmake.define.RAC_GPU_CUDA=ON, etc.) producing separate distributions — not part of the default PyPI wheel.