Show HN: Pcons: new software build tool in Python, inspired by SCons and CMake(github.com)

  What it is: Pcons is a build system where Python scripts describe what to build, and Ninja (or Make) executes it. There's no custom DSL — your build files are real Python with full IDE support, debugging, and testing. The core is completely language-agnostic: it knows nothing about compilers or C++. All tool-specific knowledge lives in pluggable toolchains and tools, so building LaTeX documents or game assets should be as natural as building C++.

  How it's different from SCons: Pcons doesn't execute builds itself. It generates Ninja files, so incremental builds are fast and you get Ninja's parallelism for free. Environments use namespaced tools (env.cc.flags, env.cxx.flags, env.link.libs) instead of flat variables, eliminating the CFLAGS vs CXXFLAGS confusion. Targets have CMake-style usage requirements (target.public.include_dirs, target.public.link_libs) that propagate transitively through the dependency graph. And unlike SCons, unknown variables are errors, not silent empty strings.

  How it's different from CMake: No DSL to learn — it's just Python. Variable substitution is recursive and explicit. The builder/toolchain system is fully extensible, so third-party builders are first-class citizens. And you can use it as `uvx pcons` for true zero-install (great for other open source projects).

  It's still under active development — ready for experimentation, not production unless you're brave. I'd love bug reports, feedback on the API design and what you'd want from a modern Python-based software build system.