Protect your own project

⏱ 10 minutes · The workshop's workflow, applied to a project you already have.

Commands below use mypkg/ (your package) and main.py (its entry script). Rename to match yours.

1. Build where you run

Build with the same Python minor version, OS and CPU architecture you deploy to. A build made on Python 3.12 does not load on 3.11 (chapter 06). Inside Docker, use the same base image for building and running.

Terminal

python --version
pip install pyarmor==9.2.7

2. Obfuscate

Terminal

pyarmor gen -O dist app.py                    # one script
pyarmor gen -O dist -r main.py mypkg          # entry script + package, recursive
pyarmor gen -O dist -r --exclude "mypkg/tests" main.py mypkg   # leave a folder out

Expected: INFO obfuscate scripts OK, and dist/ with your protected files plus pyarmor_runtime_000000/.

3. Copy what PyArmor does not

Only .py files are written to dist/. Data files (JSON, templates, static files) are not copied, and the app fails without them:

Output

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '.../dist/mypkg/config.json'

Terminal

cp mypkg/config.json dist/mypkg/
cp -r mypkg/templates dist/mypkg/

4. Check it

Terminal

cd dist
python main.py

Then run your test suite against dist/ instead of the source. tests/conftest.py shows a small switch for that, and scripts/verify.py checks that every module is obfuscated and no names leak.

5. Ship

Ship dist/ (protected code + runtime) and your pinned dependencies, never the source. For a container, copy the two-stage pattern in app/backend/Dockerfile.

If you use	Note
uvicorn / gunicorn `"mypkg.main:app"`	Works when `dist/` is the working directory or on `PYTHONPATH`
PyInstaller	Use `pyarmor gen --pack onedir`; import your app directly in the entry script (chapter 08)
Django / Flask	Copy templates, static files and migrations data as in step 3

Before production

No secrets in code, protected or not (chapter 11).
Obfuscation raises the effort to read your code. It does not protect the machine it runs on.
Pin PyArmor, register a license for commercial use, and keep the build in CI (chapter 12).