Multiple Virtual Environments

Quarto does not allow multiple virtual environments to be used in a single quarto render call.

To work around this, I wrote a script that renders each index.qmd in my posts directory. It sets the QUARTO_PYTHON variable for each render.

I use pyenv. The paths to the python executable is in the hidden .pyenv directory. Pyenv caches the package downloads, which saves a lot of space. Naming the environment the same as the post allows me to use the shared name as the dictonary key.

Finally, render the whole project. I use freeze: true in the posts/_metadata.yml, so this last render does not affect what was just accomplished.

(also, my initials are mvp. I swear I am not that conceded)

import os
import subprocess

envs = {
    'base':"/Users/mvp/.pyenv/versions/quarto_base/bin/python",
    'NGBoost':"/Users/mvp/.pyenv/versions/NGBoost/bin/python",
    'llm':"/Users/mvp/.pyenv/versions/llm/bin/python",
}

dir = os.path.join(os.getcwd(),'posts') 
paths = [i for i in os.listdir(dir) if '.' not in i]

for path in paths:
    if path in envs.keys():
        python_v = envs[path]
    else:
        python_v = envs['base']
    print(f'rendering...')
    process = f'QUARTO_PYTHON={python_v} quarto render posts/{path}/index.qmd'
    print(f'cmd: {process}')
    result = subprocess.run(process, shell=True)

subprocess.run("quarto render", shell=True)

I tried to use the pre-render argument in _quarto.yml, but I would get this weird error where the render would stall.

project:
  type: website
  pre-render: multienv.py

website:
  title: Posts
  navbar:
  ...

In theory this should work with just one quarto render (if I removed the last subprocess.run). I couldn’t get it to run, so I just use python multienv.py