Execute a Python script in the background from another extension

[phschaad]

I'm running a Python daemon in the background from my extension (terminal that doesn't request focus). However, I want this python process to respect a user's virtual environments and use PYTHON_PATH correctly etc. - this is something that is handled nicely by the vscode-python plugin. Is there a way to dispatch the execution of this python script to vscode-python?

[brettcannon]

There isn't a way for us to do the execution, but we have an API which exposes what environment a user has selected (i.e. we tell you the path to the interpreter and some relevant details). Would that work for you?

[phschaad]

That would work too, yes! Is there a documentation available for that API?

[brettcannon]

#12596 (comment) is what we got so far. It will probably be updated in the next few months (I suspect we will be providing environment variable details).

[phschaad]

Thank you very much, this is a good starting point - thanks for the quick response!

[phschaad]

I am currently revisiting this due to some issues that have come up.

The workflow

The workflow I currently employ to run a python script is:

1. Create a new terminal. This activates the currently selected Python environment (which I need)
2. Construct the correct command to launch the script (via your getExecutionDetails(uri: vscode.URI) API method)
3. Run script via that command

The issue

With this workflow, it sometimes happens that 3. happens before the environment has been activated (due to Conda sometimes taking long, as is known from other discussions in this repo). From other discussions I know that it is not possible to await the environment activation. So what I am planning on doing is to create a hidden terminal (avoid environment activation), then activate the environment myself, and then run the desired script.

The question

This leads me to ask: is it possible to get the command from the python extension, which needs to be executed to activate the selected environment? If no, is there a way (API method / command) to ask the python extension to activate the environment in a given terminal?

[brettcannon]

Our proposed API for exposing environment details to other extensions can be found at #18888 . In the specific case of conda, you will want to use conda run to execute code as that let's you skip step 1.