The &AddMethod; function is used to add a method to an environment. It's typically used to add a "pseudo-builder," a function that looks like a &Builder; but wraps up calls to multiple other &Builder;s or otherwise processes its arguments before calling one or more &Builder;s. In the following example, we want to install the program into the standard /usr/bin directory hierarchy, but also copy it into a local install/bin directory from which a package might be built: def install_in_bin_dirs(env, source): """Install source in both bin dirs""" i1 = env.Install("$BIN", source) i2 = env.Install("$LOCALBIN", source) return [i1[0], i2[0]] # Return a list, like a normal builder env = Environment(BIN='/usr/bin', LOCALBIN='#install/bin') env.AddMethod(install_in_bin_dirs, "InstallInBinDirs") env.InstallInBinDirs(Program('hello.c')) # installs hello in both bin dirs This produces the following: % scons -Q / cc -o hello.o -c hello.c cc -o hello hello.o Install file: "hello" as "/usr/bin/hello" Install file: "hello" as "install/bin/hello" As mentioned, a psuedo-builder also provides more flexibility in parsing arguments than you can get with a &Builder;. The next example shows a pseudo-builder with a named argument that modifies the filename, and a separate argument for the resource file (rather than having the builder figure it out by file extension). This example also demonstrates using the global &AddMethod; function to add a method to the global Environment class, so it will be used in all subsequently created environments. def BuildTestProg(env, testfile, resourcefile, testdir="tests"): """Build the test program; prepends "test_" to src and target, and puts target into testdir.""" srcfile = "test_%s.c" % testfile target = "%s/test_%s" % (testdir, testfile) if env['PLATFORM'] == 'win32': resfile = env.RES(resourcefile) p = env.Program(target, [srcfile, resfile]) else: p = env.Program(target, srcfile) return p AddMethod(Environment, BuildTestProg) env = Environment() env.BuildTestProg('stuff', resourcefile='res.rc') This produces the following on Linux: % scons -Q cc -o test_stuff.o -c test_stuff.c cc -o tests/test_stuff test_stuff.o And the following on Windows: C:\>scons -Q rc /fores.res res.rc cl /Fotest_stuff.obj /c test_stuff.c /nologo link /nologo /OUT:tests\test_stuff.exe test_stuff.obj res.res embedManifestExeCheck(target, source, env) Using &AddMethod; is better than just adding an instance method to a &consenv; because it gets called as a proper method, and because &AddMethod; provides for copying the method to any clones of the &consenv; instance.