allowlist_externals triggers on pytest

[stdedos]

I am not sure if I am doing this right, so bear with me:

My repo has tox as a testing dependency (https://github.com/pylint-dev/pylint-pytest/blob/1bf53a3448e636f4df84e397d6190d354b45ef6f/requirements/dev.in#L18; soon™️-to-be converted to uv), and part of the tox commands is to install the repo as editable, and run pytest (which is also a testing dependency).

• Having tox installed as a project's test dependency makes sense (the repo strongly defines & contains what it needs for it to work)
• The venv having pytest installed is important, as it is the main development environment - and hence I should be able to run pytest (also in debugging mode) as part of development

I am wondering if I am doing something wrong?

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I have checked/read:

• https://github.com/tox-dev/tox/issues?q=sort%3Aupdated-desc%20is%3Aissue%20allowlist_externals
• 5e33fda

[gaborbernat]

Could you share your tox.ini (or the relevant parts) and the exact warning/error message you get?

From the tox source, allowlist_externals automatically includes all binaries found in the tox environment's own PATH (i.e. the env's bin/ directory). So if pytest is installed inside the tox-managed environment (either via deps or as a project dependency), it should be resolved from within the env and never trigger this warning.

If it's still triggering, it likely means pytest is being resolved from outside the tox env (e.g. from the outer venv where tox itself is installed). This would be a bug worth filing as an issue — but we'd need a reproducible config to confirm.

[stdedos]

Should I assume that you cloned the repo + checked https://github.com/pylint-dev/pylint-pytest/blob/1bf53a3448e636f4df84e397d6190d354b45ef6f/tox.ini and it didn't replicate for you? 😕

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It could very well be some kind of weird/transient error because "reasons". But it's also been two months since this report, so, idk 🤷

[gaborbernat]

I cloned the repo at that commit and tested it, but I can't reproduce the pytest allowlist issue - pytest runs fine for me. Could you share the exact error message you're seeing?