Announcing the Perl Toolchain Summit 2027

Sep 28, 2026 by Philippe Bruhat (BooK)

Since the end of the Perl Toolchain Summit in Vienna, at the end of April, the organizers have been busy wrapping up 2026, and preparing for 2027. One of our main goals for this year is to be ready long before 2027 has even started.

And so today we’re happy to announce that the 17th Perl Toolchain Summit will be held in Lyon, France, from Thursday April 29 till Sunday May 2, 2027.

This post is brought to you by The Perl and Raku Foundation, a recurring Diamond sponsor of the Perl Toolchain Summit.

Started in 2008 as the Perl QA Hackathon in Oslo, the Perl Toolchain Summit is an annual event that brings together the key developers working on the Perl toolchain. Each year (except for 2020-2022), the event moves from country to country all over Europe, organized by local teams of volunteers. The surplus money from previous summits helps fund the next one.

Since 2023, the organizing team is formally split between a “global” team and a “local” team (although this setup has been informally used before).

Our global team is made up of veteran PTS organizers, who deal with invitations, finding sponsors, paying bills and communications. They are Laurent Boivin (ELBEHO), Philippe Bruhat (BOOK), Thibault Duponchelle (CONTRA), and Breno de Oliveira (GARU), supported by Les Mongueurs de Perl’s bank account.

This year, the local team is just Philippe, who lives near Lyon. This will be the fourth Perl Toolchain Summit held in the city, meaning we already have all the local stuff very well in hand.

We’ll return to our usual venue there, a hotel in front of the train station and across the street from the airport shuttle, which has hosted the Summit in 2017 and 2023 (and one Sunday in 2014).

The developers who maintain CPAN and associated tools and services are all volunteers, scattered across the globe. This event is the one time in the year when they can get together.

The summit provides dedicated time to work on the critical systems and tools, with all the right people in the same room. The attendees hammer out solutions to thorny problems and discuss new ideas to keep the toolchain moving forward. We’re still working on the attendees list at the moment, and we expect 30 to 35 people to join us in Lyon next year.

Given the important nature of the attendees’ work and their volunteer status, we try to pay for most expenses (travel, lodging, food, etc.) through sponsorship. Another goal for this year is to break even (we’ve been running the summit at a loss for the past few years, using up our treasure chest). If you’re interested in helping sponsor the summit, please get in touch with the global team at pts2027@perltoolchainsummit.org.

The Perl and Raku Foundation has been sponsoring the Perl Toolchain Summit for several years now, either via direct financial contributions, or by funding travel for some of our attendees. We are very grateful for their continued support.

The Perl and Raku Foundation is delighted to once again support the Perl Toolchain Summit as a Diamond Sponsor. The Summit brings together the dedicated people who build and maintain the tools and infrastructure the Perl community relies on every day. TPRF is proud to help give these contributors the time and space to work together, solve problems, and strengthen the ecosystem for everyone. The Foundation looks forward to another productive and inspiring Perl Toolchain Summit in 2027.