Does anyone know if it is possible to intercept the import statement somehow so that the source code could be automatically modified before it is saved as a compiled .pyc file? I think some might call this monkey-patching.
I do have an example of how to do this manually using a source_to_code PatchedLoader but no idea how to apply that to all imports automatically.
Yes, this is done using an import hook. There are many examples that you can find online. I wrote a library to help you do that Ideas: making it easier to extend Python’s syntax — ideas 0.3.14 documentation. There are others on Pypi. One that is less focused on code modification but does support all manners of patching is wrapt.