Use pytest installed via pipx

[cbrnr]

I'm trying to install tools that I need in all of my projects globally via pipx. This works fine with flake8 as long as I provide its full path (~/.local/bin/flake8) in python.linting.flake8Path.

However, this does not seem to work with pytest, even when I set python.testing.pytestPath to ~/.local/bin/pytest (and of course python.testing.pytestEnabled is true). The reason is that the Python plugin is trying to import pytest, which is different from using its command line interface.

Therefore, I was wondering if I missed some setting to make this work. If this is not possible, do you think it would be a good idea to support a globally installed pytest?

[brettcannon]

You haven't missed anything as we don't actively support a globally-installed pytest. The reason we don't do that is because pytest, unlike flake8, has an API that projects rely on via importing pytest and thus is typically way more sensitive to specific package versions per project. As such we don't run into as many people using a global pytest install like we do for linters like flake8. We also don't want to encourage folks to use a globally-installed pytest because of unexpected breakage to their tools if pytest updates in a way that changes their API which would break their code (something that's personally happened to me before 😅).

[cbrnr]

Thanks @brettcannon, this makes sense!