[FEATURE] Publish CPython 3.14 wheels for both free-threaded (no-GIL) and regular (GIL) builds on all platforms #1875

Summary

The release wheel matrix should publish CPython 3.14 native (NVX) binary wheels
for both ABI variants — regular/GIL (cp314) and free-threaded/no-GIL
(cp314t, PEP 703) — across all four supported platforms (macOS arm64,
Linux x86_64, Linux aarch64, Windows amd64).

Today neither is done consistently: regular cp314 ships on three of four
platforms but is missing on Linux aarch64, where a cp314t (free-threaded)
wheel was published instead — accidentally, and on that one platform only. No
platform ships a deliberate free-threaded wheel.

This was discovered during the 26.6.1 pre-tag review. 26.6.1 ships as-is (the
affected cell falls back to an sdist build, which works); this issue tracks doing
it properly for the next release.

Current behaviour (as of 26.6.1)

The release fileset is 5 interpreters × 4 platforms = 20 NVX wheels, all GIL,
with one wrong cell:

Evidence — published asset on release master-202606171850:

autobahn-26.6.1-cp314-cp314-macosx_15_0_arm64.whl
autobahn-26.6.1-cp314-cp314-manylinux_2_24_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl
autobahn-26.6.1-cp314-cp314t-manylinux_2_24_aarch64.manylinux_2_28_aarch64.whl   # <- cp314t, not cp314
autobahn-26.6.1-cp314-cp314-win_amd64.whl

Impact

• A cp314t wheel is tagged for the free-threaded interpreter only; it does
  not install on a regular (GIL) CPython 3.14. So
  pip install autobahn on a standard CPython 3.14 / aarch64 finds no matching
  wheel and falls back to building from the sdist (works since [BUG] Incorrect machine is detected while cross compiling #1834/[FEATURE] Replicate zlmdb modernization: sync .ai/.cicd + FlatBuffers v25.12.19, decouple flatc from build (fix cross-compile), restore FlatBuffers version-sync with zlmdb #1853 made
  the NVX build cross-/sdist-friendly, but requires a toolchain and is slower).
• This partially re-opens the aarch64 wheel-coverage gap that [BUG] PyPI missing cp312 and cpy314 wheels for manylinux aarch64 #1848 closed, for
  the single aarch64 + cp314 + GIL cell.
• Free-threaded users (python3.14t) get a wheel on aarch64 but on no other
  platform — inconsistent.

Why CI did not catch it

The strict release-fileset check (.cicd/actions/check-release-fileset) requires
the target cpy314-linux-aarch64-manylinux_2_28 (.github/workflows/release.yml:856),
and matches the ABI tag by substring. Because cp314 is a substring of
cp314t, the wrong-ABI wheel satisfied the target and the manifest went green.

Likely root cause

justfile:79 maps the build token cpy314 → uv python install cpython-3.14.
On the aarch64 manylinux build container that request appears to have resolved to
the free-threaded interpreter, while x86_64 / macOS / Windows resolved to the
GIL build. To confirm, inspect the wheels-arm64 CI log for the cp314 aarch64 job
(what uv actually installed). The fix is to pin the interpreter ABI explicitly
per build target rather than relying on cpython-3.14 resolving to the GIL build.

Proposed goal

Publish, for CPython 3.14, on every platform (macOS arm64, Linux x86_64,
Linux aarch64, Windows amd64):

• cp314 — regular / GIL (NVX native wheel)
• cp314t — free-threaded / no-GIL (NVX native wheel)

i.e. add a deliberate, symmetric free-threaded variant rather than the current
accidental, single-platform one. (Whether to also add cp313t is an open
question — see Notes.)

Tasks / acceptance criteria

• Pin the GIL CPython 3.14 interpreter explicitly for all cpy314 build
  targets so aarch64 again produces cp314-cp314 (not cp314t). Confirm
  against the aarch64 CI log first.
• Add a free-threaded build token (e.g. cpy314t → an explicit
  uv python install spec for the free-threaded 3.14) to the build matrix in
  justfile (ENVS / the cpy314) mapping at justfile:79) and the wheel
  workflows (wheels-arm64.yml and the x86_64/macOS/Windows wheel jobs).
• Build cp314t NVX wheels on all four platforms; verify the resulting ABI
  tag is cp314t on each.
• Wire the new artifacts through release.yml (artifact outputs + download
  steps), mirroring how [BUG] PyPI missing cp312 and cpy314 wheels for manylinux aarch64 #1848 plumbed cp312/cp314.
• Add cpy314t-* targets to all four platform manifests in release.yml,
  and tighten the fileset ABI matching so cp314 and cp314t are
  distinct (exact ABI-tag match, not substring) — the
  check-release-fileset README already distinguishes cpy314 vs cpy314t
  target types, so the infra supports it.
• Resulting stable fileset publishes both cp314 and cp314t for all four
  platforms (24 → 24 GIL + 4 free-threaded, depending on final scope).

Notes / caveats

• Building a cp314t wheel ≠ free-threading-safe. Under a free-threaded
  interpreter, a C/CFFI extension that does not declare free-threading support
  causes the runtime to re-enable the GIL (with a warning) at import. So a
  cp314t wheel that merely compiles may not deliver real no-GIL parallelism, and
  publishing one is an implicit claim of thread-safety. Before shipping cp314t:
  assess NVX (CFFI) and the relevant pure-Python paths for free-threading
  correctness, and declare free-threading support appropriately (verify what
  CFFI exposes for this on 3.14). This may warrant its own sub-issue.
• Toolchain availability: confirm uv / python-build-standalone provides a
  free-threaded 3.14 for each target (notably Windows amd64 and the manylinux
  aarch64 container) before committing to "all platforms".
• PyPy / earlier CPython: free-threading does not apply to PyPy or to
  cp311–cp313 in this scope. Whether to also ship cp313t (free-threading was
  experimental in 3.13) is left open.

References

• [BUG] PyPI missing cp312 and cpy314 wheels for manylinux aarch64 #1848 — added the missing aarch64 cp312/cp314 wheels and made the fileset
  symmetric (this issue is the follow-up that the substring match let slip).
• [BUG] Incorrect machine is detected while cross compiling #1834, [FEATURE] Replicate zlmdb modernization: sync .ai/.cicd + FlatBuffers v25.12.19, decouple flatc from build (fix cross-compile), restore FlatBuffers version-sync with zlmdb #1853 — NVX portable-baseline / sdist-build fixes that make the sdist
  fallback viable in the meantime.
• .github/workflows/release.yml:856 (manifest target), justfile:79
  (interpreter mapping), .cicd/actions/check-release-fileset (fileset check).

This analysis was produced with AI assistance (Claude Code) and requires human review before filing. Which I did.

Checklist

• I have searched existing issues to avoid duplicates
• I have described the problem clearly
• I have provided use cases
• I have considered alternatives
• I have assessed impact and breaking changes