Project Info — JSON Configuration Dump

The pyb -i (or pyb --project-info) command outputs the complete project configuration as pretty-printed JSON to stdout, without running a build.

Quick Start

# Dump full project configuration
pyb -i 2>/dev/null | python -m json.tool

# Extract a single value
pyb -i 2>/dev/null | jq -r .project.version

# Apply environment and property overrides
pyb -i -E ci -P coverage_break_build=false 2>/dev/null | jq .properties

Output Separation

JSON is written to stdout. All log messages (plugin loading, initializer execution, debug output) are written to stderr. This separation ensures that the stdout stream is always valid JSON, regardless of verbosity level:

# JSON only
pyb -i 2>/dev/null

# JSON to file, logs visible
pyb -i > project.json

# JSON piped, debug logs to a file
pyb -i -X 2>debug.log | jq .

# Both visible (JSON to stdout, logs to stderr)
pyb -i

What Runs

When pyb -i is invoked:

1. build.py is loaded — plugins are imported, project attributes are set.
2. Plugin initializers run — these populate default property values (e.g. dir_source_main_python, coverage_threshold_warn). Initializers only call set_property_if_unset() and bind utility functions; they do not create directories, install packages, or modify the filesystem.
3. Property overrides are applied — values from -P flags override plugin defaults.

What does NOT run: No tasks execute. No build/test virtual environments are created. No dependencies are installed. No files are written to target/.

JSON Schema

The output is a single JSON object with the following top-level keys:

pybuilder_version

The PyBuilder version string.

project

Project metadata:

environments

Array of active environment names (from -E flags).

properties

Object mapping property names to their values. Includes all built-in and plugin-defined properties. Values that are not JSON-serializable (e.g. function objects) are converted to their string representation.

plugins

Array of loaded plugin names in load order.

dependencies

Object with four sub-keys:

Each dependency is an object:

{
  "name": "requests",
  "version": ">=2.28",
  "url": null,
  "extras": null,
  "extra": null,
  "markers": "sys_platform == 'linux'",
  "declaration_only": false,
  "type": "dependency"
}

extras are the extras of the dependency itself, as in depends_on("requests[socks]"). extra is the extras group of this project that the dependency was declared under, as in depends_on("requests", extra="http"), and is null for a base dependency. A dependency belonging to a selected group appears both in runtime and under its group in extras.

Because markers are part of a dependency’s identity, one distribution may appear several times in runtime with different markers and versions.

Requirements files have "type": "requirements_file" and only name, version (always null), and declaration_only fields.

tasks

Array of task objects:

{
  "name": "run_unit_tests",
  "description": "Runs all unit tests",
  "dependencies": [
    {"name": "compile_sources", "optional": false},
    {"name": "coverage", "optional": true}
  ]
}

manifest_included_files

Array of glob patterns included in the distribution manifest.

package_data

Object mapping package names to arrays of included file patterns.

files_to_install

Array of [destination, [filenames]] pairs for files installed outside packages.

Integration Examples

CI/CD: Extract Version for Tagging

VERSION=$(pyb -i 2>/dev/null | jq -r .project.dist_version)
docker build -t myapp:$VERSION .

Dependency Auditing

# List all runtime dependencies
pyb -i 2>/dev/null | jq -r '.dependencies.runtime[].name'

# Find dependencies without version constraints
pyb -i 2>/dev/null | jq '.dependencies.runtime[] | select(.version == null) | .name'

Editor/IDE Integration

# Get source directory for language server configuration
SRC=$(pyb -i 2>/dev/null | jq -r '.properties.dir_source_main_python')

# Get test directory
TEST=$(pyb -i 2>/dev/null | jq -r '.properties.dir_source_unittest_python')

Diffing Configuration Between Environments

diff <(pyb -i 2>/dev/null | jq -S .properties) \
     <(pyb -i -E ci 2>/dev/null | jq -S .properties)

Command Line Options

pyb -i is compatible with most project options:

pyb -i is mutually exclusive with -t, -T, --start-project, and --update-project.