Install

spoolctl requires Python 3.10 or later on macOS or Linux. Windows is not supported; SQLite WAL mode and process-group semantics behave differently on Windows and the test suite does not cover it.

Checkout usage

The simplest path is to clone the repository and run spoolctl as a Python module:

git clone https://github.com/Ozhiaki/spoolctl.git
cd spoolctl
python3 -m spoolctl --version

No install step is needed. spoolctl has zero runtime dependencies beyond the Python standard library.

Single-file build

For sandboxed environments or deployment without a full checkout, spoolctl can be built into a single self-contained Python file:

python3 scripts/build_single_file.py dist/spoolctl.py
python3 dist/spoolctl.py --version

The single-file artifact bundles every module into one file. It is functionally identical to the package and is verified by the same signature matrix.

Future install paths

The following install methods are planned but not yet blessed for production use:

• pip install spoolctl – the package metadata exists in pyproject.toml but the package is not yet published to PyPI.
• uv tool install spoolctl – same constraint; will work once published.

Until these paths are available, use the checkout or single-file build above.

Docs extra

The [docs] optional dependency (pip install '.[docs]') installs mkdocs-material for local documentation builds. It is a development convenience and is never required to read the docs, run spoolctl, or pass the test suite. The pip install spoolctl path requires nothing beyond the standard library.