pex is both a library and tool for generating .pex (Python EXecutable) files, standalone Python environments in the spirit of virtualenvs. They are designed to make deployment of Python applications as simple as cp. pex is licensed under the Apache2 license.

To install pex, simply

$ pip install pex

Alternately, .pex files can be generated directly by build systems such as Pants and Buck

Documentation about pex, building .pex files, and how .pex files work is available at http://pex.rtfd.org.

To run tests, install tox and:

$ tox

To contribute, follow these instructions: http://pantsbuild.github.io/howto_contribute.html