Python – How to prevent a client from seeing the code written in an interpreted language

To a determined user, you can't.

From a practical standpoint, you can do some tricks, such as wrapping it into a binary executable or using obfuscation.

See here for full details: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/261638/how-do-i-protect-python-code

I'd give xonsh a go, it's a clever mix of shell and python.

xonsh is a Python-ish, BASHwards-compatible shell language and command prompt. The language is a superset of Python 3.4 with additional shell primitives that you are used to from BASH and IPython. xonsh is meant for the daily use of experts and novices alike.

Take advantage of Python(3)'s abstraction and package system, coupled with nice conditionals, but write what needs to be in shell as just shell.

e.g.,

#!/usr/bin/env xonsh

def exists(filename):
    return filename in $(ls)

if exists(".git"):
    git checkout master
    git pull
else:
    git clone $GITURL

Note that only a little bit of ugliness $() is required to in-line shell inside of python, and it Just Works (TM) if you are splitting things clearly by line (eg the if statement lines)

Lots more detail (including embedding python in shell lines with @() ) in the tutorial http://xonsh.org/tutorial.html

You can use it as your system shell. But just because you can doesn't mean you should :-)