There is a reason we use pip list --format=freeze instead of pip freeze, but it is subtle and probably not well documented.

pip freeze preserves some build metadata (IIRC it is specified in PEP 518). When you run pip freeze in a conda environment, it includes build-system paths for all the packages. pip installing with those present does not work because of course the paths don't exist on the target system. Connect strips them out if present, but we preferred to avoid sending them. pip list excludes those paths, even when format=freeze. That may change eventually.

Thank you for the explanation, that all makes sense! 🙌 The way I encounter this the most is when I use a github version of a package (via rsconnect.actions.deploy_python_fastapi), and pip list generates a version of a package that is not-downloadable from PyPI, even though it looks like it should be (vetiver==0.1.7.post41+g60e590a), so I encounter an error on Connect. When I pass in my own requirements.txt, it is overwritten by the pip list one that is generated. I can pass in a requirements file named something else, but Connect will still install the requirements.txt, which is a totally reasonable guess, just not helpful in this case.

Is there a way I am missing to accomplish installing GH packages?

We discussed at our kickoff this morning. You can create requirements.txt and Connect will use it, but we are also considering switching to "pip freeze" as that will improve the automatic capture.

Oh awesome! That would be great (selfishly 😄) if pip freeze was used.

You can create requirements.txt and Connect will use it

From what I am seeing, a requirements.txt is generated every time, which will overwrite any file I am passing with the name requirements.txt, but if any other file name will be ignored in favor of installing from the generated requirements.txt file. Maybe this should be a separate issue?

duplicate of #309