gitlab-org--gitlab-foss/doc/development/python_guide/index.md

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# Python Development Guidelines
GitLab requires Python as a dependency for [reStructuredText](https://docutils.sourceforge.io/rst.html)
markup rendering.
As of GitLab 11.10, we require Python 3.
## Installation
There are several ways of installing Python on your system. To be able to use the same version we use in production,
we suggest you use [`pyenv`](https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv). It works and behaves similarly to its counterpart in the
Ruby world: [`rbenv`](https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv).
### macOS
To install `pyenv` on macOS, you can use [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) with:
```shell
brew install pyenv
```
### Linux
To install `pyenv` on Linux, you can run the command below:
```shell
curl "https://pyenv.run" | bash
```
Alternatively, you may find `pyenv` available as a system package via your distribution's package manager.
You can read more about it in [the `pyenv` prerequisites](https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv-installer#prerequisites).
### Shell integration
`Pyenv` installation adds required changes to Bash. If you use a different shell,
check for any additional steps required for it.
For Fish, you can install a plugin for [Fisher](https://github.com/jorgebucaran/fisher):
```shell
fisher add fisherman/pyenv
```
Or for [Oh My Fish](https://github.com/oh-my-fish/oh-my-fish):
```shell
omf install pyenv
```
## Dependency management
While GitLab doesn't directly contain any Python scripts, because we depend on Python to render
[reStructuredText](https://docutils.sourceforge.io/rst.html) markup, we need to keep track on dependencies
on the main project level, so we can run that on our development machines.
Recently, an equivalent to the `Gemfile` and the [Bundler](https://bundler.io/) project has been introduced to Python:
`Pipfile` and [Pipenv](https://pipenv.readthedocs.io/en/latest/).
A `Pipfile` with the dependencies now exists in the root folder. To install them, run:
```shell
pipenv install
```
Running this command installs both the required Python version as well as required pip dependencies.
## Use instructions
To run any Python code under the Pipenv environment, you need to first start a `virtualenv` based on the dependencies
of the application. With Pipenv, this is a simple as running:
```shell
pipenv shell
```
After running that command, you can run GitLab on the same shell and it uses the Python and dependencies
installed from the `pipenv install` command.