Installation

Installing PyChor

Install PyChor from PyPI:

python -m pip install pychor

PyChor requires Python 3.9 or newer and has no required dependencies — the core library and all three backends are built from the standard library alone.

For local development, install the package from a checkout:

python -m pip install -e .

Optional extras

The bundled examples implement real cryptographic protocols and need a few third-party packages. Install the examples extra to run them:

python -m pip install -e ".[examples]"

That pulls in galois (finite-field arithmetic for secret sharing), pynacl (public-key encryption, used by the oblivious-transfer protocol), and numpy, scipy, pandas, and matplotlib for the applications and the statistical security tests. See Examples for what each example needs.

Running the tests

The examples double as the test suite. Install the test extra and run pytest from a checkout:

python -m pip install -e ".[examples,test]"
pytest

pytest runs every example under the simulation and forking_tcp backends, plus the tests for the library itself; pytest --runslow adds the long statistical run and the multi-process deployment tests. See Testing for what the suite covers and how to select parts of it.

Platform requirements

The backends differ in what they ask of the platform:

Backend	Requirement
SimulationBackend	None. Runs anywhere Python runs.
ForkingTCPBackend	os.fork, so Unix-like systems only — not Windows. Needs len(parties) free localhost ports starting at base_port.
TCPBackend	Each party's address must be bindable by its own process and reachable from every other party, with the chosen ports open.

Both TCP backends move data as pickled Python objects with no authentication or encryption, so they belong on a trusted network. See Backends for the details.

Building the documentation

To build this documentation locally, install the documentation extra:

python -m pip install -e ".[docs]"

Preview the documentation site:

mkdocs serve

Validate a production build:

mkdocs build --strict

Deploy the documentation manually to GitHub Pages:

mkdocs gh-deploy --clean