The METADATA file in a wheel’s .dist-info
folder holds the project’s core metadata as header-style Field: value
lines. A wheel needs metadata version 1.1 or later. This page follows the Python
Packaging Authority’s “Core metadata specifications”.
Metadata versions
Metadata-Version may be 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 or 2.6
(there is no 2.0).
Fields
| Field | Since | Use | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
Metadata-Version | 1.0 | Required | Version of the metadata format. |
Name | 1.0 | Required | The distribution’s name. |
Version | 1.0 | Required | The distribution’s version. |
Dynamic | 2.2 | Multiple | Fields that are computed when the wheel is built. |
Platform | 1.0 | Multiple | An operating system supported but not listed in the classifiers. |
Supported-Platform | 1.1 | Multiple | Operating system and processor a binary distribution is for. |
Summary | 1.0 | Optional | One-line description. |
Description | 1.0 | Optional | Longer description, which may use markup. |
Description-Content-Type | 2.1 | Optional | Markup of the description: text/plain, text/x-rst or text/markdown. |
Keywords | 1.0 | Optional | Comma-separated search keywords. |
Author | 1.0 | Optional | Author’s name, optionally with contact information. |
Author-email | 1.0 | Optional | Author’s e-mail address, RFC 822 style. |
Maintainer | 1.2 | Optional | Maintainer’s name, when not the author. |
Maintainer-email | 1.2 | Optional | Maintainer’s e-mail address. |
License | 1.0 | Optional | Free-text licence; deprecated since 2.4 in favour of License-Expression. |
License-Expression | 2.4 | Optional | SPDX licence expression for the distribution. |
License-File | 2.4 | Multiple | Path of a licence file in the project (stored in .dist-info/licenses/). |
Classifier | 1.1 | Multiple | A Trove classifier; License :: classifiers are deprecated since 2.4. |
Requires-Dist | 1.2 | Multiple | Another distribution this one needs. |
Requires-Python | 1.2 | Optional | Python versions the distribution works with. |
Requires-External | 1.2 | Multiple | A non-Python system dependency, as a hint to packagers. |
Project-URL | 1.2 | Multiple | A labelled URL for the project. |
Provides-Extra | 2.1 | Multiple | An optional feature name, used in conditional dependencies. |
Import-Name | 2.5 | Multiple | An import name the project alone provides. |
Import-Namespace | 2.5 | Multiple | An import namespace shared with other projects. |
Provides-Dist | 1.2 | Multiple | A project contained in this distribution (rarely used). |
Obsoletes-Dist | 1.2 | Multiple | A project this distribution makes obsolete (rarely used). |
Home-page | 1.0 | Optional | Deprecated since 1.2; use Project-URL. |
Download-URL | 1.1 | Optional | Deprecated since 1.2; use Project-URL. |
Requires | 1.1 | Multiple | Deprecated since 1.2; use Requires-Dist. |
Provides | 1.1 | Multiple | Deprecated since 1.2; use Provides-Dist. |
Obsoletes | 1.1 | Multiple | Deprecated since 1.2; use Obsoletes-Dist. |
“Multiple” fields may appear more than once, one value per line.
Sources
Python Packaging User Guide, “Core metadata specifications” (field list, versions,
deprecations, valid Metadata-Version values). The detailed syntax of each
field (version specifiers, environment markers, the e-mail-header encoding and the
body used for Description) is given there and is not repeated here.