dependency-management.md

Introduce pip-tools

What is it?

Pip-tools is a command-line toolset for managing dependencies in Python projects. It streamlines the process of handling project dependencies by providing essential functionalities.

Why do we use it?

Dependency Management

Pip-tools helps manage a project's dependencies by resolving and pinning specific versions. It ensures that everyone working on the project uses the same versions of dependencies, promoting consistency and reproducibility.

Simplified Workflow

The requirements.in file contains high-level dependencies, while the requirements.txt file contains the pinned versions. This separation enables easy updating and maintenance of dependencies.

How do we use it?

For virtual environment:

Install or upgrade pip.

pip install --upgrade pip

Install pip-tools.

pip install pip-tools

To generate pinned versions, add or update a package and its version specifier according to your needs in the requirements.in or requirements.dev.in file.

pip-compile --generate-hashes --resolver=backtracking -o <requirements_file>.txt <requirements_file>.in

For Docker

Add or update the package and its version specifier according to your needs in a *.in file. In the project root directory.

make compile-requirements

Alternatively, you could run pip-compile directly in the builder container.

docker compose -f docker-compose.builder.yml run --rm builder pip-compile ...