isee dev logs

[thorwhalen]

(Sounds like "I see dead people", but wasn't done on purposed.)

Here's a place to make notes about some dev choices, or things that were done, when we want to have a linkable trace as to the why/how.

[thorwhalen]

Both of these were solved using in this claude AI conversation: https://claude.ai/share/72bdea2c-4220-4812-8723-377f68b43e03

Pytest Not Ignoring Specified Folders

Problem: When using --ignore flags in pytest via GitHub Actions, specified folders (like _resources) were still being imported during test collection, causing import errors for dependencies not available in CI.

Solution: Enhanced the pytest action to use multiple exclusion mechanisms:

• Created a temporary pytest.ini file with --ignore-glob patterns
• Maintained standard --ignore flags for each path
• Added --confcutdir option to prevent conftest.py loading from ignored directories
• Improved logging for debugging

This combination properly prevents pytest from discovering and importing modules in the ignored directories.

Issue 2: Version Number Not Captured in GitHub Actions

Problem: A GitHub Action trying to capture the output of a Python function using shell command substitution (VERSION=$(isee gen-semver)) faced challenges because:

• Shell commands only capture stdout, not Python return values
• Environment variables set with $GITHUB_ENV aren't immediately available in the same step
• The argh command-line parser adds complexity to the output handling

Solution: Implemented a multi-faceted approach:

1. Enhanced the gen_semver function with an explicit output_mode parameter
2. Split the GitHub Action into separate steps (generate version, then update setup.cfg)
3. Used GitHub's step outputs to pass data between steps
4. Explicitly passed the version to the update command with a --version parameter
5. Added verbose logging for troubleshooting

This approach creates a cleaner, more reliable workflow that works with GitHub Actions' execution model.