feat: modernize Python tooling to uv + pyproject.toml + semantic-release

[irfanuddinahmad]

Summary

Modernize openedx-core to uv + pyproject.toml (PEP 621/735) + python-semantic-release.

Part of openedx/public-engineering#506 (tracked in openedx/public-engineering#516).

• Replace setup.py/setup.cfg with pyproject.toml (PEP 621 static metadata), version derived from git tags via setuptools-scm
• Switch from pip-compile to uv with PEP 735 dependency groups; commit uv.lock
• Update tox.ini to use tox-uv with uv-venv-lock-runner
• Update CI to use astral-sh/setup-uv; SHA-pin all actions
• Add python-semantic-release + release.yml, replacing the old token-based pypi-publish.yml with OIDC trusted publishing

Not included: src/ layout. This repo already uses src/openedx_{core,content,tagging,catalog} and src/openedx_django_lib, so Phase 0 of the org-wide migration (openedx/public-engineering#506's 2026-07-15 decision) required no changes here — MANIFEST.in, .coveragerc's (now [tool.coverage.run]) source, docs/conf.py's sys.path entries, and tox.ini already pointed at src/.

Removed

Deleted files: setup.py, setup.cfg, .coveragerc, .readthedocs.yml (legacy duplicate of .readthedocs.yaml), requirements/ (all .in/.txt files, constraints.txt, private.readme), .github/workflows/pypi-publish.yml (replaced by release.yml, OIDC instead of the PYPI_UPLOAD_TOKEN secret).

Removed Makefile targets:

Target	Reason
compile-requirements	pip-compile machinery, replaced by uv lock

upgrade and requirements targets were kept but rewritten to use uv (edx_lint write_uv_constraints + uv lock --upgrade, and uv sync --group dev, respectively) instead of pip-compile/pip-sync.

Versioning

Dynamic — setuptools-scm derives the build version from the latest git tag. Pre-flight check passed: latest git tag v1.1.0 matches the version currently live on PyPI (1.1.0), so the first automated release should compute the correct next version from conventional-commit history.

Testing Notes

Verified locally:

• uv lock resolves cleanly (156 packages)
• uv sync (base project, no groups) succeeds; editable install makes all five packages (openedx_core, openedx_content, openedx_tagging, openedx_django_lib, openedx_catalog) importable, with openedx_core.__version__ correctly resolving to 1.1.0 via importlib.metadata
• python -m build + twine check dist/* both pass; inspected the built wheel and confirmed all five packages (with py.typed markers) are bundled correctly
• mypy resolves the editable install correctly under this repo's existing src/ layout (ran ad hoc with a partial dependency set due to a local sandbox limitation below; it got past all import/plugin resolution and only flagged missing pytest/freezegun stubs from the deliberately-partial ad hoc install, not a resolution problem)
• tox -l lists all envs correctly (py312-django52, quality, docs, pii_check, lint-imports) — tox.ini parses cleanly against the new [dependency-groups] names

Could not verify locally: uv sync --group dev (and test/quality/doc) fails to build in this sandbox because mysqlclient has no macOS wheel and needs local MySQL client headers unavailable here. This predates the migration (same coupling existed via the old requirements/test.in) and is expected to build fine on GitHub Actions' ubuntu-latest runners, which ship with MySQL client libraries preinstalled. Full test-suite / quality-check execution therefore relies on this PR's own CI run.

Code reviewer notes

• Two items flagged below need maintainer action, not code changes:
  1. PyPI OIDC trusted publisher needs configuring for openedx-core (tracked in the consolidated comment on Tbain/253 add tags count #506) before the first automated release can publish.
  2. Unable to confirm from outside the org whether the OPENEDX_SEMANTIC_RELEASE_GITHUB_TOKEN secret used by release.yml is configured for this repo.
• Known, out-of-scope gap: .github/workflows/upgrade-python-requirements.yml calls openedx/.github's shared reusable workflow, which hardcodes add-paths: requirements with no override input. Now that requirements/ is deleted, that scheduled job will keep running but silently stop producing real dependency-upgrade PRs (empty diff, no failure, no alert). This can't be fixed from this repo — it needs a fix in openedx/.github itself (e.g. parameterizing add_paths, or auto-detecting uv.lock vs. requirements/).
• mysqlclient is bundled into the test-base dependency group (and therefore test/quality/doc/ci/dev transitively), matching the pre-migration coupling in requirements/test.in → quality.in/doc.in/dev.in. This is why the "Not included"/"Testing Notes" sections above call out the local verification gap.
• [dependency-groups].ci is intentionally minimal (tox, tox-uv only, no include-group) — CI's own uv sync --group ci step only needs tox on PATH; tox installs each env's actual dependency group itself via uv-venv-lock-runner.

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This PR was created with Claude Code.

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