GitHub Actions for deployment breaks if user guide relies on dev dependencies

[emilyriederer]

Big picture: GitHub Actions currently breaks if you require dev dependencies for your documentation because pip does not install them.

Currently, the GitHub Actions installs your package as an editable install using pip:

      #- name: Install package and dependencies
      #  run: |
      #    python -m pip install --upgrade pip
      #    python -m pip install -e .
      #    python -m pip install git+https://github.com/posit-dev/great-docs.git

This broke for my workflow because my user_guide notebooks contain many dependencies that are not package dependencies (e.g. viz functions). I manage my dependencies with uv and specify those non-package project dependencies in my pyproject.toml. As a result, GHA broke when trying to render my Quarto file.

Personally, I fixed this by changing my GHA workflow to use uv sync instead which install dev dependencies automatically. However, that is of course only a solution for uv users. It might be useful to add support for the major environment managers and/or document on the Deployment page that users may have to adjust this manually. (Happy to draft a documentation PR if that helps!)