Simplify publishing "beta test" addons to your private GitHub repo

Development
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I encountered a problem that seems likely to bite Developers new to the Gramps coding environment. After Claude AI resolved the ambiguity, I prompted it to write a short (approx. 1-page) intro to the issue.

Do we want to make such things part of our developer documentation? Or use it as reference for writing a human doc?

Developer Note: Using Python Subprocesses in Gramps Addons

Author: Claude (Anthropic AI)
Contributor: Brian McCullough
Date: February 17, 2026
Applies to: Gramps 5.2.x, Gramps 6.0.x (desktop versions)
Status: Current as of February 2026

Reference:

In a wish-coding experiment to reframe the make.py into Gramps Debug Tool with a GUI for Addon Developers tool, beta tester Patrice discovered that the Tool did not know which Python environment to use.

Experimental ‘debug’ addon tool Addon Pack and Ship worked on the Fedora 37 Linux development system. But on a Windows box (where @PLegoux also had a full Python development environment installed), button actions gave the following error:

Error: Python was not found; run without arguments to install from the Microsoft Store, or disable this shortcut from Settings > Apps > Advanced app settings > App execution aliases.

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Superficial comparison between make.py and Addon Pack and Ship for Gramps 5.2

https://github.com/emyoulation/CuratedGrampsPlugins/blob/main/COMPARE_make_APS.md

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The primary goal of the “Addon Pack and Ship” addon is to allow developers, wish-coders and hackers to more easily share a beta (or alpha) version of an Addon plug-in for Gramps.

This means leveraging the Addon Manager by building a ‘Project’ of curated addons and posting a set of folders to a public GitHub repository.

Simplified end-user installation allows Translators to become involved earlier and identify localization issues. So this tool includes the make.py option to generate the template.pot file, package the plugin’s files into a .tgz archive, and create the listings JSON file. All in a folder structure that can be added via drag’n’drop to your GitHub repo.

Then you just need to make certain that the folder is public, and suss out the https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ path to the folder containing the listings and download folders.