New conda packages are added to environment.yml
Sometimes it is necessary to pin a package to a specific version to avoid conflicts and errors. If the package is only being added to environment.yml to pin its version, please add it after the comment to that effect, so it can be removed when pinning is no longer required.
Conda will look for updates for all packages that are not pinned to a specific version, every time a new commit is pushed.
If you want to explicitly update a package you need to push a change to trigger the updates.
A potential way to ensure this without pinning the package to a specific version is to pin it to
package >= x.x
where x.x is the version you want.
Changes to other files in the repository, as this README file, will also trigger an update.
Check the progress of an update here
The testing framework will try and import every module in the conda environment.
In some cases modules will not import cleanly and throw an error when the tests are run. To manage these errors packages can be added to testconfig.yml. There are three sections in testconfig.yml: skip, exception, and preload.
Any module import that errors but does not cleanly throw an exception should be added to skip. Any module listed in skip is never imported. It may be legitimate to skip a module import if that module will not behave correctly in a testing environment, e.g. it needs a valid X11 display. This must be tested manually. Add the module to skip, and once the environment has been updated module load it and test it appropriately.
Other candidates for adding to skip are tests that are not necessary (arguably tests should not be run simply by importing the package in which they are contained). For example the plotly package has a huge number of modules under plotly.validators that are currently skipped.
Note that the python code that checks the skip condition use an in test, which will match quite promiscuiously. Take care.
Any module that throws a clean exception may be added to exception, which will allow this import to fail. Often it may come from a module that is not routinely used, or has been incorrectly imported, but will cause no, or minimal, disruption to the every day use of the package.
In some cases, due to the order in which modules are imported, the error only occurs in the test framework but not in everyday use. In this case add the module to preload. If that doesn't fix the error it may be necessary to change the order of the modules in preload. If the module still errors, add that module to skip if deemed appropriate.
When updating to a new unstable release environment use the following protocol
- Remove all version pins unless pinned due to an unresolved issue
- Delete all packages below the comment line
Can be removed when pinning no longer required - Check build is successful
- Add back version pins where required. Pin to latest available version as unstable aims to be an updated environment. Packages dependencies which are added simply to pin their version should be added below the comment to that effect.