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:laughing:  - okay so I am back at the same place I was 7 months ago.
<https://pantsbuild.slack.com/archives/C046T6T9U/p1663657211424529>

I have a file (ephemeral in the sandbox - VERSION, generated from the vcs_version) .. i want to "read that file" and supply it to the *version* field on the "python_artifact"

GOAL - write *read_version(...)* to supply the pre-computed version.

```resource(
    name = "pyproject_toml",
    source = "pyproject.toml",
)

vcs_version(
    name = "version",
    generate_to = "VERSION",
    template = "{version}",
)


python_distribution(
    name = "myproject",
    dependencies = [
        ":pyproject_toml",
    ],
    generate_setup = True,
    provides = python_artifact(
        name = "myproject",
        version = read_version(
            dependencies = [
                ":vcs_version"
            ]
        )
    ),
    ...
)```

I am assuming I need to write a new "target" that returns the contents of a Digest .

As there is not a "read_contents(...)" target - already - is this just not allowed ? or am I missing something really fundamental ?

Have you checked this?
<https://www.pantsbuild.org/docs/plugins-setup-py>