Dependencies in mandatory groups are not exported by default

poetry export and poetry install have the following identical arguments and documentation:

• --without: The dependency groups to ignore. (multiple values allowed)
• --with: The optional dependency groups to include. (multiple values allowed)

The way that poetry install works is as such: if you run poetry install without any additional parameters, it installs dependencies from the default group (under [tool.poetry.dependencies]) and all mandatory groups (I use the word mandatory in this post to specify groups that are not optional). You can customize this behaviour by excluding mandatory groups using --without or including optional groups using --with. This is intuitive, and is compatible with what the documentation for --with and --without parameters imply. However, this is not how poetry export works.

poetry export only exports dependencies from the default group (under [tool.poetry.dependencies]) and their sub-dependencies. Dependencies in optional AND mandatory groups are excluded from export, unless they are explicitly included using --with. There is no utility for --without, because all groups are excluded by default. This in incompatible with the documentation, inconsistent with other poetry commands especially poetry install, and counter-intuitive. I believe poetry export's behaviour should be changed to match that of poetry install.

Here is an example showing the issue. I have explicitly defined one of the groups as mandatory, but that is not strictly necessary. Groups that are not defined as optional are mandatory by default.

pyproject.toml:

[tool.poetry]
name = "poetry_export_groups"
version = "0.1.0"
description = ""
authors = ["Example <example@example.com>"]
readme = "README.md"

[tool.poetry.dependencies]
python = "^3.11"
bottle = "^0.12.25"

[tool.poetry.group.mandatorygroup]
optional = false

[tool.poetry.group.mandatorygroup.dependencies]
colorama = "^0.4.6"

[tool.poetry.group.optionalgroup]
optional = true

[tool.poetry.group.optionalgroup.dependencies]
multipart = "^0.2.4"

[build-system]
requires = ["poetry-core"]
build-backend = "poetry.core.masonry.api"

I run poetry lock to create poetry.lock:

# This file is automatically @generated by Poetry 1.7.1 and should not be changed by hand.

[[package]]
name = "bottle"
version = "0.12.25"
description = "Fast and simple WSGI-framework for small web-applications."
optional = false
python-versions = "*"
files = [
    {file = "bottle-0.12.25-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:d6f15f9d422670b7c073d63bd8d287b135388da187a0f3e3c19293626ce034ea"},
    {file = "bottle-0.12.25.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:e1a9c94970ae6d710b3fb4526294dfeb86f2cb4a81eff3a4b98dc40fb0e5e021"},
]

[[package]]
name = "colorama"
version = "0.4.6"
description = "Cross-platform colored terminal text."
optional = false
python-versions = "!=3.0.*,!=3.1.*,!=3.2.*,!=3.3.*,!=3.4.*,!=3.5.*,!=3.6.*,>=2.7"
files = [
    {file = "colorama-0.4.6-py2.py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:4f1d9991f5acc0ca119f9d443620b77f9d6b33703e51011c16baf57afb285fc6"},
    {file = "colorama-0.4.6.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:08695f5cb7ed6e0531a20572697297273c47b8cae5a63ffc6d6ed5c201be6e44"},
]

[[package]]
name = "multipart"
version = "0.2.4"
description = "Parser for multipart/form-data."
optional = false
python-versions = "*"
files = [
    {file = "multipart-0.2.4-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:5aec990820b8a9e94f9c164fbeb58cf118cfbde2854865b67a9a730edd1fb9d1"},
    {file = "multipart-0.2.4.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:06ba205360bc7096fefe618e4f1e9b2cdb890b4f2157053a81f386912a2522cb"},
]

[metadata]
lock-version = "2.0"
python-versions = "^3.11"
content-hash = "5f9c8003cc21f00ff4bda58eceedf883f970eae295a97350bc93d2d6721815ea"

Now if I poetry install without any additional arguments, bottle and colorama are installed—the former is a default dependency and the latter is in a mandatory group. However, multipart—which is in an optional group—is not installed unless explicitly included using --with.

$ poetry install
Installing dependencies from lock file

Package operations: 2 installs, 0 updates, 0 removals

  • Installing bottle (0.12.25)
  • Installing colorama (0.4.6)

Installing the current project: poetry_export_groups (0.1.0)

However, when I try exporting requirements, mandatory dependencies (in our case colorama, which is in a mandatory group) are not included in the export by default. Contrary to what the documentation says, --with is required for optional AND mandatory groups, making it inconsistent with other poetry commands and its behaviour counter-intuitive.

$ poetry export -f requirements.txt --without-hashes

bottle==0.12.25 ; python_version >= "3.11" and python_version < "4.0"

I am using Poetry 1.7.1 and poetry-plugin-export 1.6.0

Start by reproducing the behavior with the pyproject.toml example, its poetry.lock, and poetry export -f requirements.txt --without-hashes; compare the result with poetry install. Done means the export includes dependencies from mandatory groups by default while still excluding optional groups unless they are explicitly selected.