python-poetry / python-poetry/poetry

Document why virtual environments should (nearly) always be used, and system site-packages is considered harmful

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area/docs
Dominant language
Python
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Description

Every time someone comes here with something going wrong after they set poetry config virtualenvs.create false the answer is "oh, you didn't want to do that". It's a footgun.

Can anything be done?

  • update the docs with more cautions?
  • make that option harder to use / print a big old warning when it is used?
  • add a new option with meaning "I really do want to use the system environment and acknowledge that it's probably a bad idea"
  • other ideas?

Personally I don't want poetry to manage my virtual environments at all, though I do want it to refuse to go ahead if I've forgotten to create the environment myself. But probably it's hard to get to there from here; and certainly not everyone has the same workflow.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by reviewing the documentation for poetry config virtualenvs.create and the existing discussion, then determine whether the scope is documentation, a warning, or a new configuration behavior. Done requires a decided approach that clearly explains system site-packages risks and reflects that decision in the project.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
documentation, tooling
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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