The docs aren’t very clear: I have a

python_sources

that groups stuff, like

pex_binaries

and

files

, if I put that in the

dependencies

for a

docker_image

, will they be copied in? Just trying it out seems to suggest, no… How can we group things that we want to put in multiple

docker_image

s then?

As it says in the docs, currently

docker_image

only can depend on certain targets like

file

,

python_distribution

and

pex_binary

. So if you want to copy some

python_sources

directly, that won’t work.

This is something that @bitter-ability-32190 has a plan for improving

It's gonna be quite the journey 😅

The docs don’t actually say that. In the actual docs it says “Addresses to other targets that this target depends on, e.g. [‘helloworld/subdir:lib’, ‘helloworld/main.py:lib’, ‘3rdparty:reqs#django’].” and in the link I posted, it says “A

docker_image

can depend on loose files belonging to `file` / `files` targets, and on artifacts packaged from a variety of targets, such as

pex_binary

,

python_distribution

,

archive

, or any other target that can be built via the package goal.”

That doc is a generic doc and hence you get this kind of confusion. I created an issue and did some work to fix it but yeah not done yet https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/issues/16522 EDIT: fixed the issue link

To clarify one thing about the question though: you mention “python_sources that groups stuff, like pex_binaries and files”, what do you mean by “groups” there? Does the

python_sources

depend on the

pex_binary

targets somehow?

Sadly, yes.

Another clarification after reading this issue https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/issues/16561

currently inference is only for packagable targets

So even

files

won’t work

files

work as dependencies, but aren't inferred

Yeah, I was about to say, files work just fine if you specify it in the deps. We’re not using inference anywhere, there’s at least that 🙂

Ah, so we should do a better job (via tutorials and so on) of articulating what target types and their dependencies mean, but I’m not sure what “`python_sources` depending on a `pex_binary`” means, or will do

I can tell you with our old docker image plugin, it used to work 🙂 now, I have no idea. What’s a way of just saying “this is a group of things”?

you can use a plain

target

to just group stuff together and depend on that single address.

That is exactly what I was looking for, I was looking for something like group or similar. Thank you!