Packing extension from autotools project

[abitrolly]

The project I am trying to build is a C++ library that uses autotools, which is then wrapped with swig into Python module + extension.

The problem is that if I need to build the extension the setuptools way, I need to replicate all include dirs and compiler options in pyproject.toml for all libs and dependencies that are compiled in the extension.

I've just started, but I am already getting some spurious errors from C++ compiler that some code is invalid.

[project]
name = "gv"
version = "14.1.0.dev202511292323"  # TODO: dynamic

[tool.setuptools]
py-modules = ["gv"]

[[tool.setuptools.ext-modules]]
name = "gv"
sources = ["gv.i"]
include-dirs = [
  "../../lib",
  "../../lib/common",
  "../../lib/gvc",
  "../../lib/pathplan",
  "../../lib/cgraph",
  "../../lib/cdt"
]

I already can see that this approach is cumbersome and unmaintainable. First, I don't have necessary C++ skills to troubleshot that, but also maintaining two build toolchains - autotools and setuptools - in parallel just seems plain wrong.