Suggestion: Add a command/option to the CLI to list groups

[jakecyr]

• I have searched the issues of this repo and believe that this is not a duplicate.
• I have searched the FAQ and general documentation and believe that my question is not already covered.

Feature Request

It would be nice to be able to view all possible groups through the CLI through a command such as poetry list --groups as opposed to having to open the pyproject.toml file.

In addition to the above, if groups supported an additional property description it would make the output of the above recommended command easier for users to interpret by showing the purpose for the group.

An alternative and simpler solution could be to include what group dependencies are in when running poetry show --with dev. For example, the output could be:

coverage       7.2.7     dev      Code coverage measurement for Python

Example

In the pyproject.toml file I could have:

[tool.poetry.group.dev]
description = "Optional dev dependencies used for testing and linting code"
optional = true

[tool.poetry.group.dev.dependencies]
coverage = "7.2.7"
pytest = "7.4.0"
ruff = "0.0.272"

Using the CLI, I could run:

> poetry list --groups

Groups:

dev: Optional dev dependencies used for testing and linting code
    coverage = "7.2.7"
    pytest = "7.4.0"
    ruff = "0.0.272"

[ammargit93]

Can i claim this issue, if no one is working on this? @python-poetry/triage

[jakecyr]

Can i claim this issue, if no one is working on this? @python-poetry/triage

Yeah thank you!

[radoering]

For future reference: https://github.com/orgs/python-poetry/discussions/10681

Some key points from the discussion:

• What is the advantage of a command that lists groups compared to just looking into pyproject.toml?
• Where to put it? poetry list --groups is probably the wrong place. poetry show might be better suited depending on what the command/option should display exactly. poetry metadata might be a more complete approach to listing fields from the pyproject.toml.

[ammargit93]

Actually, I found a different Issue proposing a similar functionality
#7519

[radoering]

Actually, I found a different Issue proposing a similar functionality
#7519

Thanks for the link. That is similar to the "alternative and simpler solution" in the issue description.

I think that is something that is less controversial, especially considering transitive dependencies.

One thing we should consider is whether the groups should be displayed by default or not and if there should be an option to show/hide the groups. (I would probably tend to keep the default behavior as is and add an --with-groups option.)

[ammargit93]

Yes having a dedicated flag seems modular, so I'd prefer that over default behavior. Should I start working on this and open a PR?

[radoering]

Yes having a dedicated flag seems modular, so I'd prefer that over default behavior. Should I start working on this and open a PR?

Would be fine with me.

To summarize:

• extend poetry show
• keep default behavior
• add flag to additionally show (resulting) groups of dependencies

Some details to consider:

• I am not 100% sure about the name of the flag, considering there is already --with (see current options). However, I cannot come up with anything better than --with-groups at the moment.
• In contrast to RFE: include dependency group in 'poetry show' output #7519, I think "groups" should be put after the version.
• We should probably only display the groups that are included. Which groups are included can be influenced by --only, --with and --without.
• How does it play together with other options?
  • --format=json -> new field with list of (sorted) groups
  • --tree -> error?
  • With other options we probably only have to consider which column it should be. Probably, the last before the description.