With the following package structure

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── setup.py

Contents of setup.py

from setuptools import setup
setup()

Contents of setup.cfg

[metadata]
name = my_package
version = 0.1

[options]
packages = find:

I can build wheel or a source distribution for my_package like this

pip wheel --no-deps -w dist .
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1-py3-none-any.whl
python setup.py sdist
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1.tar.gz

But according to maintainer of setuptools, a declarative build configuration is ideal and using an imperative build is going to be a code smell. So we replace the setup.py with pyproject.toml:

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── pyproject.toml

Contents of pyproject.toml

[build-system]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
requires = ["setuptools", "wheel"]

And you can still build a wheel the same way as before, it works. But sdist doesn't work:

python: can't open file 'setup.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

So how should you actually build the .tar.gz file using setuptools? What's the user-facing tool to create sdist? I do not want to change the build backend. It looks like other packaging tools all write their own build entry points, but I thought the whole point of defining a declarative build system in the metadata was so that you didn't have to get hands-on with the build system, learning how each different packaging tool expects to be invoked or having to go into the interpreter and calling a Python API manually. But the PEP for build system requirements is over 2 years old now. Am I missing something obvious here?

How to build a source distribution without using setup.py file?

With the following package structure

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── setup.py

Contents of setup.py

from setuptools import setup
setup()

Contents of setup.cfg

[metadata]
name = my_package
version = 0.1

[options]
packages = find:

I can build wheel or a source distribution for my_package like this

pip wheel --no-deps -w dist .
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1-py3-none-any.whl
python setup.py sdist
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1.tar.gz

But according to maintainer of setuptools, a declarative build configuration is ideal and using an imperative build is going to be a code smell. So we replace setup.py with pyproject.toml:

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── pyproject.toml

Contents of pyproject.toml

[build-system]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
requires = ["setuptools", "wheel"]

And you can still build a wheel the same way as before, it works. But sdist doesn't work:

python: can't open file 'setup.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

So how should you actually build the .tar.gz file using setuptools? What's the user-facing tool to create sdist? I do not want to change the build backend. It looks like other packaging tools all write their own build entry points, but I thought the whole point of defining a declarative build system in the metadata was so that you didn't have to get hands-on with the build system, learning how each different packaging tool expects to be invoked or having to go into the interpreter and calling a Python API manually. But the PEP for build system requirements is over 2 years old now. Am I missing something obvious here?

How to build a source distribution without using setup.py file?

With the following package structure

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── setup.py

Contents of setup.py

from setuptools import setup
setup()

Contents of setup.cfg

[metadata]
name = my_package
version = 0.1

[options]
packages = find:

I can build wheel or a source distribution for my_package like this

pip wheel --no-deps -w dist .
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1-py3-none-any.whl
python setup.py sdist
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1.tar.gz

But according to maintainer of setuptools, a declarative build configuration is ideal and using an imperative build is going to be a code smell. So we replace the setup.py with pyproject.toml:

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── pyproject.toml

Contents of pyproject.toml

[build-system]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
requires = ["setuptools", "wheel"]

And you can still build a wheel the same way as before, it works. But sdist doesn't work:

python: can't open file 'setup.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

So how should you actually build the .tar.gz file using setuptools now? What's the user-facing tool to create sdist? It looks like other packaging tools all write their own build entry points, but I thought the whole point of defining a declarative build system in the metadata was so that you didn't have to get hands-on with the build system, learning how each different packaging tool expects to be invoked or having to go into the interpreter and calling a Python API manually. But the PEP for build system requirements is over 2 years old now. Am I missing something obvious here?

With the following package structure

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── setup.py

Contents of setup.py

from setuptools import setup
setup()

Contents of setup.cfg

[metadata]
name = my_package
version = 0.1

[options]
packages = find:

I can build wheel or a source distribution for my_package like this

pip wheel --no-deps -w dist .
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1-py3-none-any.whl
python setup.py sdist
# generates file ./dist/my_package-0.1.tar.gz

But according to maintainer of setuptools, a declarative build configuration is ideal and using an imperative build is going to be a code smell. So we replace the setup.py with pyproject.toml:

.
├── my_package
│   └── __init__.py
├── setup.cfg
└── pyproject.toml

Contents of pyproject.toml

[build-system]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
requires = ["setuptools", "wheel"]

And you can still build a wheel the same way as before, it works. But sdist doesn't work:

python: can't open file 'setup.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

So how should you actually build the .tar.gz file using setuptools? What's the user-facing tool to create sdist? I do not want to change the build backend. It looks like other packaging tools all write their own build entry points, but I thought the whole point of defining a declarative build system in the metadata was so that you didn't have to get hands-on with the build system, learning how each different packaging tool expects to be invoked or having to go into the interpreter and calling a Python API manually. But the PEP for build system requirements is over 2 years old now. Am I missing something obvious here?

How to build a source distribution without using setup.py file?