Package Chirp for pip install (PyPI distribution)

[TamirEliav]

Background

Chirp currently ships as a Windows EXE built with PyInstaller (dist/Chirp.exe) and as a cloned-repo installation (pip install -r requirements.txt && python -m chirp). Neither is great for:

• Python users on Linux/macOS who want the app via their usual toolchain.
• Scripted/remote deployments where pip install chirp-audio (or similar) is the obvious incantation.
• Reusing Chirp's DSP/trigger modules as a library in other projects — currently requires a git submodule or manual PYTHONPATH.

Aim

Publish Chirp as a standard installable Python package so pip install chirp-recorder (name TBD — chirp is taken on PyPI) gets you a working chirp CLI entry point and importable modules.

Proposed Implementation

Package metadata

• Add pyproject.toml with PEP 621 metadata (project name, version driven from chirp.__version__, description, license, Python requirement, authors).
• Use setuptools or hatchling as the build backend — hatchling is lighter and handles version-from-file cleanly.
• Move install requirements from requirements.txt into [project.dependencies]. Keep requirements.txt as a dev/pinned-versions file for developers.
• Entry point: [project.scripts] chirp = "chirp.main:main" so pip install gives a chirp command in PATH.
• Include manual.html as package data.

PyPI name

chirp is already taken. Candidate names:

• chirp-recorder
• chirp-audio
• chirp-trigger
• bioacoustic-chirp

Pick one and reserve it on TestPyPI first.

Build + publish

• Add build/twine as dev dependencies.
• GitHub Actions workflow: on tag push (v*), build sdist + wheel, upload to PyPI via pypa/gh-action-pypi-publish. Use trusted publishing (OIDC) rather than API tokens.
• Test installation on Linux, macOS, and Windows via the workflow before publishing.

PyInstaller compatibility

• Keep chirp.py shim at the repo root so dist/Chirp.exe still builds the same way.
• Verify PyInstaller picks up the package correctly when installed from wheel.

Docs

• README section: "Install from PyPI" with the one-line pip install … command.
• Link to the manual; mention conda env name is optional (not required post-pip-install).

Tests

• Add a workflow step that does pip install -e . and then runs pytest tests/ -q — confirms the package layout is valid for editable installs.
• Smoke-test: after install, chirp --version prints the right version and python -c "import chirp; print(chirp.__version__)" works.

Notes

Low-risk, mostly plumbing, but high-value for distribution. The post-Phase-1 package layout (chirp/ with subpackages) is already pip-friendly — the work is mostly metadata and CI.