python-wheels-builds

Reproducible, attested builds of upstream Python packages for platforms the upstream project doesn't publish official wheels for — starting with dbt-oss / dbt-core on Windows ARM64.

This repo doesn't fork or modify the packages it builds. It checks out an exact upstream git tag, builds it unmodified, and cryptographically attests both what was built and where it came from, so anyone downloading a wheel from here can verify it matches upstream — without having to trust this repo blindly.

Disclaimer: python-wheels-builds is an independent, unofficial project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by PyPA, PyPI, the Python Software Foundation, or the upstream projects it builds wheels for (e.g. dbt-labs/dbt-oss). Wheels published here are built from unmodified upstream source and attested as such, but they are a third-party build, not an official release from the upstream project.

Why this exists

Some popular Python packages with native (Rust/C) extensions don't ship Windows ARM64 wheels yet, even though the upstream source builds fine there. This project cross-builds those wheels on real windows-11-arm runners and publishes them, with enough provenance attached that the build can be verified rather than trusted.

This is the first package (dbt-oss / dbt-core); the workflow is written to generalize to others.

How a build works

The build-dbt-oss-win-arm64 workflow, on manual dispatch:

1. Resolves the requested git tag in dbt-labs/dbt-oss to an exact commit SHA via git ls-remote (no floating tags).

2. Checks out that exact commit and verifies the working tree is clean and HEAD matches the resolved SHA — no drift, no local patches.

3. Builds the requested wheel(s) with maturin build --release, one at a time, into isolated dist/<name>/ folders. For the dbt-oss name, the name field in pyproject.toml is temporarily renamed and restored immediately after — mirroring upstream's own release-v2.yml "Rename pyproject for oss wheel" step, since dbt-oss and dbt-core are the same codebase under two package names during their naming transition.

4. Re-verifies afterward that no tracked source file was modified and HEAD still matches the resolved SHA, then records the upstream repo, tag, and commit in upstream-source.json.

5. Attests, per wheel:

   • Build provenance (actions/attest-build-provenance) — proves the wheel was built by this workflow, on this commit of this repo, not tampered with afterward.
   • Upstream source (actions/attest, custom predicate type) — proves the wheel corresponds to the exact upstream repo/tag/commit recorded in upstream-source.json.

   Each wheel gets its own single-subject attestation rather than one shared attestation covering both, so a consumer verifying one wheel never has to reason about another wheel's provenance.

6. Publishes a GitHub Release with the wheel(s) attached, after the release job independently re-verifies every attestation bundle with gh attestation verify and sanity-checks that each wheel's bundle is distinct.

Verifying a wheel yourself

You don't have to trust this repo — verify it:

gh attestation verify dbt_oss-<version>-<platform>.whl --repo patrickryankenneth/python-wheels-builds
gh attestation verify dbt_oss-<version>-<platform>.whl --repo patrickryankenneth/python-wheels-builds \
  --predicate-type https://patrickryankenneth.github.io/attestations/upstream-source/v1

The first confirms the wheel was built by this repo's workflow, unmodified since. The second confirms which upstream commit it was built from. Both are backed by Sigstore-signed, GitHub-hosted attestations — not by anything this repo self-asserts in a README.

The bigger picture

This repo is one piece of a small trust chain:

Repo	Role
python-wheels-builds (this repo)	Builds wheels, attests build provenance + upstream source, publishes GitHub Releases.
python-wheels.github.io	Hosts a PEP 503 simple index pointing at the released wheels, so they're pip-installable via --extra-index-url.
python-wheels (CLI, planned)	A thin installer — e.g. python-wheels install dbt-oss — that resolves the right wheel for your platform, runs the same gh attestation verify checks automatically before installing, and fails closed if verification doesn't pass.

The goal of the CLI is that a user never has to run the gh attestation verify commands above by hand, or implicitly trust that this GitHub account hasn't been compromised — the tool checks it for them, every install, before any code from the wheel runs. The same attestation pattern is meant to extend to other packages beyond dbt-oss, using this repo's workflow as the template.

Status

Early — one package, manual workflow_dispatch builds, no automated tracking of new upstream releases yet. Treat wheels published here as independently verifiable, not as an official or endorsed distribution of dbt-oss/dbt-core.

Security

If you find an issue with the build process, the attestation setup, or a mismatch between a published wheel and its claimed upstream source, please open an issue in this repo.