Alteryx Python tool shared environment management best practices

[adhillon]

Hi everyone, 

We keep running into issues where the python tool uses pip install at run time which leads to mismatches between environments (local developer python environment and server python environment). We always pull down the requirements.txt from the production server and save this down as per the Alteryx server upgrade instructions. I was wondering if anybody has suggestions to better manage, test or control this?

Thank you!

[OllieClarke]

@JarrodT @grossal you’re python people, do you know best practice here?

[JarrodT]

It sounds like the requirements.txt route is the way to go to keep track of your server environment libraries. If you need a lightweight library for a process that doesn't match the server's version, you can package the library with the workflow and import it in python without affecting the overall environment packages.