PS5-Python

CPython for the PlayStation 5
A practical Python runtime, browser launcher, and app supervisor for PS5 homebrew.

Experimental but functional port of the CPython language runtime to the jailbroken PS5 payload environment.

This repository currently targets CPython 3.14.7, pinned to upstream source commit 823f0323ee6ec1402088b73bce1a38473cac36dc. The exact pin is recorded in CPYTHON_VERSION.txt; this is not an unpinned “latest Python” port.

The project now ships a standalone interpreter, a browser-based Python manager, process-backed application jobs, and a tested standard-library subset. It is still intended for development and homebrew payload environments, not stock retail consoles.

Demo

What is included

• CPython 3.14.7, pinned to upstream commit 823f0323ee6ec1402088b73bce1a38473cac36dc.
• Standalone and web-launcher ELF artifacts built with the PS5 Payload SDK.
• 170 of 189 pinned top-level standard-library entries present in the runtime bundle (about 90% module presence; not API-parity coverage).
• Browser interpreter, script editor, app arguments, and independently stoppable process-backed applications.
• Practical examples for Flask, SQLite, storage, networking, files, logs, Markdown, static sites, webhooks, and regular scripts.

The remaining limitations are explicit: ordinary subprocess execution, process pools, IPv6, GUI/PTY stacks, in-console packaging/bootstrap, and some native extension paths are outside the current PS5 payload contract.

Built-in examples

The release includes these manifest-backed examples. Web apps use the listed default port; the regular script app has no listening port.

Example	Mode	Port	Purpose
Flask Dashboard	Web	9101	Runtime information, current time, and a JSON health endpoint
Storage Inspector	Web	9102	Read-only /data/python directory and file browser
SQLite Notes	Web	9103	Persistent notes stored in SQLite
Network Toolbox	Web	9104	DNS, TCP connectivity, and HTTP status checks
LAN File Browser	Web	9105	Read-only file browsing and downloads from /
Log Viewer	Web	9106	ShadowMountPlus log selection, tailing, and filtering
Markdown Documentation	Web	9107	Safe browser view of local Markdown files
Webhook Inspector	Web	9108	Captures and displays the last 25 HTTP requests
Static Site Starter	Web	9109	App-local HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and JSON endpoint
Media Catalog	Web	9110	Read-only /data media index grouped by type and size
System Report	Script	—	Prints runtime details and supplied command-line arguments

The standalone interpreter also includes examples/main.py as a minimal script-launch example. Each app has its own README with usage details, paths, and configuration options.

Documentation

Document	Purpose
Project status	Concise implementation, verification, and limitation matrix
Standard-library status	Coverage inventory, tested APIs, omissions, and upstream-derived checks
PS5 limitations	Platform, kernel, SDK, GUI, PTY, subprocess, and packaging boundaries
Web launcher guide	Browser manager, API, app lifecycle, arguments, and deployment
App bundles	Self-contained app manifests, dependencies, assets, and modes
Testing guide	Host checks, PS5 aggregate tests, lifetime tests, and recovery
Release guide	Tags, release assets, self-hosted PS5 builds, and local fallback
Contributing	Development workflow and pull-request checklist
Third-party notices	Upstream projects, build-time dependencies, and attribution

The implementation roadmap is in roadmap.md. Test provenance and portable-subset rules are documented in tests/UPSTREAM_TESTS.md.

Status

The implementation snapshot is summarized in a table in docs/status.md. In brief, the project builds CPython 3.14.7 for PS5, passes the 68-script aggregate suite, includes 170 of 189 pinned stdlib entries, and provides a browser launcher with independently stoppable process-backed applications. Module-level coverage is in docs/stdlib-status.md; platform boundaries are in docs/ps5-limitations.md.

Build the first PS5 ELF

Run these from WSL at the repository root:

make source-fetch
make host-build
make ps5-core

The PS5 build and test targets invoke lint automatically. Run the source quality checks directly when iterating from WSL:

make format       # apply the checked-in clang-format policy
make format-check # verify formatting without modifying files
make tidy         # run clang-tidy with the PS5 compile definitions
make lint         # run format-check and tidy

The project-owned C and header files under src/ are formatted using the checked-in .clang-format policy. Clang-Tidy uses .clang-tidy and analyzes those files with C11 and the same PS5-facing include paths used by the launcher build. Vendored CPython sources are intentionally excluded.

PS5 builds use all WSL CPU threads by default and automatically use ccache when available. Select the compiler cache explicitly with PS5_CACHE=ccache or PS5_CACHE=sccache; disable caching with PS5_CACHE=none (or the legacy PS5_CCACHE=0). The cache applies to both CPython compilation and launcher link commands.

The SDK uses LLVM lld by default. mold is supported as an opt-in experiment:

PS5_LINKER=mold make ps5-core

Use PS5_JOBS=8 to override automatic parallelism. sccache must be installed inside WSL and available on its PATH; the same applies to ccache and mold.

The core artifacts are:

• build/ps5/python.elf — the standalone PS5 interpreter launcher.
• build/ps5/libpython3.14.a — the static runtime library for a future custom launcher.
• build/ps5/cpython-lib/ — the minimal external runtime bundle, including the Python-level os path wrappers.

time is already compiled into the static interpreter as a built-in C module. The initial standard-library slice adds os and its POSIX path/stat/ABC dependencies from the matching CPython checkout. The hardware test is tests/stdlib/os_time.py.

The launcher accepts the script path as its first argument and an optional runtime directory as its second argument. If omitted, the runtime directory defaults to /data/python/cpython-lib:

python.elf /data/python/main.py /data/python/cpython-lib

The reproducible hardware loop builds the ELF and runtime bundle, creates the required PS5 FTP directories, uploads them, and launches the ELF:

PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-run
PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-run SCRIPT=examples/main.py
PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-run SCRIPT=tests/core_suite.py

The target is not a native app package yet; it is intentionally one ELF, one external Python script, and one small runtime directory.

Phase 4 lifetime checks are available with:

make host-lifetime
PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-lifetime

Run the aggregate hardware tests, including the standard-library checks, with:

PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-test

Run those tests plus the repeated-process lifetime checks with:

PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-suite

The live TLS smoke test can also be run directly when external DNS and internet access are available:

PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-run SCRIPT=tests/stdlib/test_tls_handshake.py

ps5-core and ps5-web only build artifacts; they do not run hardware tests. ps5-test builds the ELF, uploads the test bundle, and runs all 68 aggregate tests. ps5-suite adds the lifetime checks. RUN_TIMEOUT is set to 120 seconds for the aggregate run.

The deployment root defaults to /data/python. Override it when needed with PS5_RUNTIME_ROOT=/some/other/absolute/path.

See docs/testing.md for the /data/python versus /download0 storage decision and the intentional error tests.

See docs/stdlib-status.md for the exact standard- library coverage, omitted APIs, PS5 limitations, upstream sources, and tests. Update that document whenever a standard-library module changes.

See docs/ps5-limitations.md for the consolidated split between remaining implementation work and deep PS5 kernel/SDK limits.

The PS5 build automatically downloads and builds the pinned OpenSSL 3.5.2 static dependency under build/ps5/deps/openssl. To build it independently, run bash tools/build_openssl_ps5.sh from WSL. The resulting _ssl and _hashlib modules are linked into the interpreter.

Multiple applications can be packaged independently. See docs/app-bundles.md and the complete example in apps/flask_dashboard. Validate and deploy it with:

make host-app APP=apps/flask_dashboard
PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-app APP=apps/flask_dashboard

The web deployment ships a practical starter suite under apps/: a Flask runtime dashboard, storage and LAN file browsers, SQLite notes, network checks, log and Markdown viewers, a webhook inspector, a static-site starter, and a media catalog, plus a regular system_report script. Each web app listens on its own documented port so they can run together under the process supervisor, and every app card accepts optional command-line arguments.

Prepare an app's pure-Python dependencies on the host with make package-app APP=apps/myapp; the PS5 receives the completed bundle and does not run pip or download packages.

The browser-based manager is documented in docs/web-launcher.md. Start it with:

PS5_HOST="<your-PS5-IP>" make ps5-web

The Run script view submits bounded source bodies to the native POST /api/script/run endpoint and shares persistent interpreter state with WebREPL. Packaged applications run as independent process-backed jobs and can be launched and stopped concurrently; file-backed scripts remain on the web-launcher roadmap.

Manual release deployment

For a prebuilt install, download python-ps5-<version>.tar.gz from the Releases page and extract it on your computer. Copy these extracted directories to the PS5 using your FTP client:

runtime/cpython-lib/  -> /data/python/runtime/cpython-lib/
web/                  -> /data/python/web/
apps/                 -> /data/python/apps/

The archive also contains these three ELFs under runtime/:

runtime/python.elf
runtime/python-web.elf
runtime/python-app-supervisor.elf

Run one Python script

Copy a .py file to /data/python/main.py, then launch the standalone ELF from elfldr or your payload manager:

ELF:  /data/python/runtime/python.elf
Args: /data/python/main.py /data/python/runtime/cpython-lib

Run the web launcher

Launch these ELFs in order from elfldr or your payload manager:

1. ELF:  /data/python/runtime/python-app-supervisor.elf
   Args: 8092

2. ELF:  /data/python/runtime/python-web.elf
   Args: 8090 8091 8092

Open http://<PS5-IP>:8090/ in a browser. The arguments are the HTTP port, TCP WebREPL port, and local application-supervisor port. Keep the supervisor running while using the web launcher.

Connect to the raw TCP WebREPL from WSL, Linux, or macOS with netcat:

nc <PS5-IP> 8091

For command history when rlwrap is installed:

rlwrap nc <PS5-IP> 8091

The prompt accepts one Python source line at a time. Use the second launcher argument if you choose a different WebREPL port.

The PS5 configure path uses the FreeBSD compatibility triplet expected by the SDK (x86_64-pc-freebsd) and the tracked patch in patches/ps5-freebsd-configure.patch. Optional modules that require a separate math library are excluded from the core target.

CI and releases

The CI workflow runs the host suite and shell validation on every push and pull request. PS5 hardware tests remain an explicit operator step because the SDK and a jailbroken console are not available on GitHub-hosted runners.

The release workflow builds the standalone and web ELF artifacts on a self-hosted runner labeled ps5-sdk, clones and installs the PS5 Payload SDK into temporary runner storage, packages the runtime bundle, and uploads the ELF files, archive, and checksums to an existing GitHub Release. docs/releasing.md also provides the local gh release upload fallback.

Credits

Built with the PS5 Payload SDK by John Törnblom (ps5-payload-dev). Third-party components, authors and licenses are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

License

Copyright © 2026 BlackBearReloaded. Licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later; see LICENSE. Third-party components keep their own licenses. Binary releases are built from the tagged source in this repository.

Disclaimer

• No affiliation. This is an independent homebrew project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Sony Interactive Entertainment. "PlayStation", "PS5" and related marks are trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. Python is a registered trademark of the Python Software Foundation.
• No proprietary material. No Sony SDK, firmware, encryption keys or decrypted system modules are included.
• No warranty. This project is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, to the extent permitted by law. See sections 15 and 16 of the GPL.
• Use at your own risk. Running homebrew requires a modified console, which may void its warranty, breach the platform's terms of service, or cause data loss.
• Legal use only. Use it only with hardware, accounts and content you own. This project does not support or enable piracy.

AI assistance

This project was developed with AI assistance from OpenAI and/or Anthropic tools.