Overview of the Installation Process

The zc.buildout software is very easy to install with only one dependency, on the setuptools package that provides manipulation facilities for Python eggs.

1. Many existing projects are already based on zc.buildout and include within their project files the necessary bootstrap.py file. To activate use of zc.buildout within such a project, simply run that bootstrap.py using the specific Python interpreter for the project. This may be the system Python or in the case of a virtualenv sandbox, the Python within the bin/ subdirectory of the project.

   $ cd projectdir
   $ bin/python bootstrap.py
   

Don’t have the pip command?

You can install the pip command by following the instructions on the pip installation page.

2. While zc.buildout is most often installed within each project directory, it can also be installed system-wide, to make it easy to create new projects.

   $ pip install zc.buildout
   

   This gives you a new command named buildout to use in initializing or updating a project.

For an even more isolated build environment...

To use an isolated instance of Python within the project, the following commands will create a new sandbox and establish use of zc.buildout within it.

$ virtualenv --no-site-packages newproject
$ cd newproject
$ bin/pip install zc.buildout
$ bin/buildout init

3. To add zc.buildout to a new project, the primary step is to execute the buildout init command while your current directory is set to the root of the project directory. This command will create all necessary files/directories, including a minimal buildout.cfg file to control buildout.

   $ cd newproject
   $ buildout init
   

   This command sequence will use the system Python for the project. If you have some other project set up that uses zc.buildout you can borrow its buildout command to initialize your new project.

   $ cd newproject
   $ /oldproject/bin/buildout init
   

   Unfortunately this sequence of commands will not provide a bootstrap.py command for others to use to initialize zc.buildout when they receive a copy of your project. Therefore it is recommended that you download and incorporate a copy of bootstrap.py within your project fileset.

   $ cd newproject
   $ wget -O bootstrap.py https://bootstrap.pypa.io/bootstrap-buildout.py
   

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A good next step in understanding zc.buildout is Directory Structure of a Buildout which also covers which file/directories should be under version control and which should not.