VERSION file not included in distribution

[jmahlik]

Describe the bug
Trying to access the _version attribute fails since the VERSION file isn't included in the package.

I found this when coming up with a workaround for #244 since I was using runpy to run the files and ensure they are importable.

To reproduce
A clear, step-by-step set of instructions to reproduce the bug.
The provided code need to be complete and runnable, if additional data is needed, please include them in the issue.

$ python -c 'import sagemaker_core._version'
╭─────────────────────────────── Traceback (most recent call last) ────────────────────────────────╮
│ in <module>:1                                                                                    │
│                                                                                                  │
│\venv\Lib\site-pack │
│ ages\sagemaker_core\_version.py:10 in <module>                                                   │
│                                                                                                  │
│    7                                                                                             │
│    8 version_file_path = os.path.join(root_dir, "VERSION")                                       │
│    9                                                                                             │
│ ❱ 10 with open(version_file_path) as version_file:                                               │
│   11 │   __version__ = version_file.read().strip()                                               │
│   12                                                                                             │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:
\\venv\\Lib\\VERSION'

Expected behavior
The VERSION file should be included with the distribution.

Simplest solution would be to make it dynamic and fetch the version with importlib.metadata at runtime. I'll submit a PR for this.

pyproject.toml: Setuptools will make sure this file is included with no extra config needed.

[tool.setuptools.dynamic]
version = {file = ["VERSION"]}

_version.py

from importlib import metadata
__version__ = metadata.version("sagemaker_core")

Another alternative would be using package_data. This is not as clean though.

pyproject.toml

[tool.setuptools.package-data]
sagemaker_core = ["VERSION"]

And the version could be gotten by using importlib.resources.files: https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.resources.html#importlib.resources.files

import importlib.resources

__version__ = importlib.resources.files("sagemaker_core.VERSION").read_text().strip()

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Bug information
A description of your system. Please provide:

• SageMaker Core version: master
• Python version: 3.11-3.13
• Is the issue with autogen code or with generate code ?: no

Additional context
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