Buildguard

Stop broken Python dependencies from wasting your CI runs.

Your CI passes.
You merge.
Next build fails — or worse, production breaks.

Same requirements.txt. Different result.

Buildguard detects when your dependency install will fail before CI burns time on it.

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What it catches

Buildguard runs a clean install of your pinned dependencies and surfaces real failure modes:

• Missing distributions (package/version no longer available)
• Python version incompatibilities
• Broken or inconsistent upstream releases
• Yanked or partially published packages

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Example

$ buildguard check requirements.txt

❌ INSTALL FAILURE DETECTED

Package: uvloop==0.17.0  
Error: No matching distribution found

This will fail your CI build.

Suggested fix:
- Check available versions
- Update or remove the pinned version

Why this matters

Dependency failures are non-obvious and expensive:

• CI fails after minutes of runtime
• Failures appear “random” across environments
• Issues originate upstream — not in your code

Buildguard turns this into a fast preflight check.

Install

pip install buildguard

Usage

buildguard check requirements.txt

Optional flags:

--json                    # machine-readable output
--show-available-versions # show valid versions if install fails
--python-version 3.11     # simulate a specific Python version

Use in CI (recommended)

Run Buildguard before your main install step:

buildguard check requirements.txt

Fail fast. Save time.

GitHub Actions example (PyPI install)

name: Buildguard Check

on:
  pull_request:
  push:

jobs:
  buildguard:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.11'

      - name: Install Buildguard
        run: python -m pip install --upgrade pip buildguard

      - name: Run Buildguard
        run: buildguard check requirements.txt

JSON output (for automation)

buildguard check requirements.txt --json

Example:

{
  "status": "fail",
  "failure_category": "missing_distribution",
  "failing_package_hint": "uvloop==0.17.0",
  "suggested_fixes": [
    "Check available versions",
    "Update pinned version"
  ]
}

License

Free for personal use.

Commercial use requires a license: 👉 https://heffman.gumroad.com/l/buildguard

Why Buildguard exists

This problem shows up everywhere:

“CI worked yesterday. Today it fails. Nothing changed.”

It’s almost always dependency resolution or upstream state.

Buildguard isolates that failure before it costs you time.