Using pip-tools and pip-compile for Python dependency management

Links

• pip-tools
• pip-compile

Use case

I want to keep my requirements up to date and I don't want to worry about it.

Instructions

Note: Even in a Docker setup, I still use pip tools in a virtual env outside of Docker. It's generally always been faster.

1. Installpip-tools with pip install pip-tools
2. Put your requirements in a requirements.in file:

boto3
django
django-extensions

3. Run pip-compile requirements.in --output-file requirements.txt
4. You will see the "pinned" version of the requirements in a requirements.txt file.
5. Rebuild your Docker container or reinstall your requirements however you do that.

The output in requirements.txt will be something like:

# This file is autogenerated by pip-compile with Python 3.10
# by the following command:
#
#    pip-compile requirements.in
#
asgiref==3.6.0
    # via django
django==4.1.7
    # via -r requirements.in
sqlparse==0.4.3
    # via django

You can see the source of every installed package, not just the ones you defined in your requirements.in.