Github Action for building executables with PyInstaller for running on Linux

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.

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 the application requires Tkinter, ensure to use the tkinter branch of this repository (eg JackMcKew/pyinstaller-action-linux@tkinter), as this will undergo the steps to install tkinter and please set the tkinter argument to true (this is under the with similar to how path is defined). Note that this will slow the action down considerably as Python will need to be uninstalled & rebuilt once tkinter is installed

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

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

- name: PyInstaller Linux
  uses: JackMcKew/pyinstaller-action-linux@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: [ master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ master ]

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

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

    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
      with:
        name: name-of-artifact
        path: src/dist/linux

If you are running into problems, please try using the branch python3.10:

- name: PyInstaller Linux
      uses: JackMcKew/[email protected]
      with:
        path: 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!