Python poetry - how to install optional dependencies?

You need to add a tool.poetry.extras group to your pyproject.toml if you want to use the -E flag during install, as described in this section of the docs:

[tool.poetry.extras]
caching = ["redis"]

---

The key refers to the word that you use with poetry install -E, and the value is a list of packages that were marked as --optional when they were added. There currently is no support for making optional packages part of a specific group during their addition, so you have to maintain this section in your pyproject.toml file by hand.

The reason behind this additional layer of abstraction is that extra-installs usually refer to some optional functionality (in this case caching) that is enabled through the installation of one or more dependencies (in this case just redis). poetry simply mimics setuptools' definition of extra-installs here, which might explain why it's so sparingly documented.

I will add that not only you have to have this extras section added by hand, as well your optional dependencies cannot be in dev section.

Example of code that won't work:

[tool.poetry]
name = "yolo"
version = "1.0.0"
description = ""
authors = []

[tool.poetry.dependencies]
python = "2.7"
Django = "*"

[tool.poetry.dev-dependencies]
pytest = "*"
ipdb = {version = "*", optional = true}

[tool.poetry.extras]
dev_tools = ["ipdb"]

But this WILL work:

[tool.poetry]
name = "yolo"
version = "1.0.0"
description = ""
authors = []

[tool.poetry.dependencies]
python = "2.7"
Django = "*"
ipdb = {version = "*", optional = true}

[tool.poetry.dev-dependencies]
pytest = "*"

[tool.poetry.extras]
dev_tools = ["ipdb"]