bazel-contrib / bazel-contrib/rules_python
Automatic dynamic resolution of pip environments
- Dominant language
- Starlark
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Description
### Description
Consider a monorepo with many separate pip environments
- Let py_library `A` depend on `numpy` and have an associated pip environment (i.e. requirements.txt.lock file)
- Let py_library `B` depend on `A` and a specific version `numpy==X` and also have its own pip environment.
For B, whether we end up using the version of `numpy` from `A` or from `B`'s pip environment depends entirely on the order of `deps` in the definition of `B`.
```
py_library(
name = "A",
deps = [pip_A("numpy")],
)
py_library(
name = "B",
deps = [
# If we accidentally swap the order, we are going to use `pip_A("numpy")`
pip_B("numpy"),
"//path/to:A",
],
)
```
When we have a big monorepo with multiple bazel subpackages and multiple pip environments this very quickly gets out of hand and can a lot of problems.
### Describe the solution you'd like
It would be extremely nice if the environment can be automatically resolved. For example, instead of the above, we instead write
```
py_library(
name = "A",
deps = [pip_dep("numpy")],
)
py_library(
name = "B",
deps = [
pip_dep("numpy"),
"//path/to:A",
],
)
```
Here `pip_dep` automatically resolves to the correct environment at build time. For A it resolves to `pip_A`, for B it resolves to `pip_B` (this can also be propagated from `py_test` and `py_binary`). For this to function correctly the assumption is that `pip_B` contains all `pip_A` packages that `A` requires, but not necessarily the same versions. This can very easily be achieved with proper dependency management across pip environments - either via `-r A_requirements.in` or by recursive inclusion in `pyproject.toml`.
The above behavior is theoretically possible today by adding a special macro `pip_dep` which resolves based on a `string_flag` and `config_setting`. However, this is quite far from convenient from an usage perspective, for example:
- The user needs to select and pass the correct flag for any binary or test that he runs
- Simultaneously running the entire suite of tests for the monorepo is not possible since bazel needs to be invoked with a different flag for every subpackage (this also can make things a lot slower)
Ideally the correct environment can be automatically resolved for a given target based on its path in the repo (if we assume all targets under B use pip_B and all targets under A use pip_A, which is IMO a sensible assumption). Then one can enforce the correct environment via transition. On the command line targets can be invoked without any extra configuration arguments (or configuration arguments can overwrite the automatic resolution).
Example implementation https://gist.github.com/nikonikolov/3204c93621c86b6f6d10723f65e7c1b7. Likely very suboptimal and can be improved. I am in no way a bazel expert, I coded it up with the help of Gemini
### Describe alternatives you've considered
1. Using a single lock file for the entire repo -> most of the time impossible due to conflicting requirements in different subpackages
2. Make sure that if B depends on A, it always uses the same versions of the pip packages from A. This means user need to use `-c A_requirements.txt.lock` to compile `B_requirements.txt.lock`. With multiple subpackages and conflicting environments, one would be constantly running into version conflicts which will have to be manually resolved (if at all possible), which is obviously far from desirable (hence the need for tools such as `uv pip compile` or `pip-compile`)
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