Without building

When working exclusively on the Python portions of the extension (located under lib) it is possible to skip building of extension. This can help achieve faster iteration while developing, or even avoid the need to set up a build environment.

Releases and changes to C++ code will still require building the extension however.

Mechanism

Setting the GODOT_PYTHON_MODULE_LIB_DIR environment variable will change where the godot module is loaded from.

When set to the path of the source lib directory, the godot module will be loaded from that directory instead of the embedded module archive.

For example, if the project’s repository is checked out to ~/src/godot-python-extension then starting the Godot editor may look like this:

GODOT_PYTHON_MODULE_LIB_DIR=~/src/godot-python-extension/lib godot -e

Live reload

After modifying the godot module it is possible to reload portions of it without restarting the editor.

While in the editor press Ctrl + Shift + P to open the command palette. Then search for “Reload Python Extension Modules”.

Only some modules are currently enabled for reloading, as module reloading comes with some caveats. See lib/godot/_python_extension/editor/__init__.py for the list of currently reloadable modules.