#17336 Should we expose internal (python) tools as targets? New discussion created by thejcannon OK my last big request/idea for 2.15.x I promise (but also not really 😉) Sometimes I find myself wanting to run a tool which Pants is currently wrapping. • pex - For hopefully obvious reasons. • also tools like

black

or

pytest

or similar I could of course declare a

pex_binary

and run that but it requires me ensuring the version and configuration is similar to that of Pants (boo double-config). One big reason for this that I find myself wanting is knowing what CLI args are possible (especially for pytest). There's no easy way invoke

pytest --help

and get all the CLI knobs/levers including third-party and first-party ones. A second reason is wanting to run

pex lock ...

using the exact same version of

pex

Pants is. So what would it look like to have explicit/implicit targets for each tool? Then I could

run

them. AND

export

wouldn't be exporting them by default if they had addresses 😉 Thoughts? My bikeshed name was

interal_tool

or more specifically

internal_python_tool

(to mirror

external_tool

from #17277) pantsbuild/pants