Virtual Projects

new in 0.20.0

Virtual projects are projects which are themselves not installable Python packages, but that will sync their dependencies. They are declared like a normal python package in a pyproject.toml, but they do not create a package. Instead the tool.rye.virtual key is set to true.

For instance this is useful if you want to use a program like mkdocs without declaring a package yourself:

rye init --virtual
rye add mkdocs
rye sync
rye run mkdocs

This will create a pyproject.toml but does not actually declare any python code itself. Yet when syncing you will end up with mkdocs in your project.

Behavior Changes

When syncing the project itself is never installed into the virtualenv as it's not considered to be a valid package. Likewise you cannot publish virtual packages to PyPI or another index.

Limitations

Virtual projects can not have optional dependencies. These even if declared are not installed.

Workspaces

If a workspace does not have a toplevel package it's recommended that it's declared as virtual.