When working with a venv virtual environment, which files should I be commiting to my git repository?

Question

Using GitHub's .gitignore, I was able to filter out some files and directories. However, there's a few things that left me a little bit confused:

• GitHub's .gitignore did not include /bin and /share created by venv. I assumed they should be ignored by git, however, as the user is meant to build the virtual environment themselves.
• Pip generated a pip-selfcheck.json file, which seemed mostly like clutter. I assume it usually does this, and I just haven't seen the file before because it's been placed with my global pip.
• pyvenv.cfg is what I really can't make any sense of, though. On one hand, it specifies python version, which ought to be needed for others who want to use the project. On the other hand, it also specifies home = /usr/bin, which, while perhaps probably correct on a lot of Linux distributions, won't necessarily apply to all systems.

Are there any other files/directories I missed? Are there any stricter guidelines for how to structure a project and what to include?

Answer 1

Although venv is a very useful tool, you should not assume (unless you have good reason to do so) that everyone who looks at your repository uses it. Avoid committing any files used only by venv; these are not strictly necessary to be able to run your code and they are confusing to people who don't use venv.

The only configuration file you need to include in your repository is the requirements.txt file generated by pip freeze > requirements.txt which lists package dependencies. You can then add a note in your readme instructing users to install these dependencies with the command pip install -r requirements.txt. It would also be a good idea to specify the required version of Python in your readme.