Question: why are dev dependency-groups of workspace members not being installed?

[RensDimmendaal]

Question

Environment
UV Version: uv 0.6.8 (c1ef48276 2025-03-18)
Python Version: 3.13.0
OS: Mac OS

Issue Description

I've set up a UV workspace with multiple packages that each have their own dev dependencies defined in the [dependency-groups] section. When I run commands that should install dev dependencies, only the root workspace's dev dependencies get installed, but the dev dependencies from the workspace members are missing.

Could someone please tell me if I am doing something wrong or if I perhaps have the wrong expectation of what can be accomplished with workspaces and/or dependency-groups?

Steps to Reproduce

dir tree:

.
├── README.md
├── hello.py
├── pyproject.toml
├── uv.lock
└── ws
    └── my-ws-member
        ├── README.md
        ├── hello.py
        └── pyproject.toml

./pyproject.toml:

[project]
name = "test-ws"
version = "0.1.0"
description = "Add your description here"
readme = "README.md"
requires-python = ">=3.13.0"
dependencies = ["my-ws-member"]

[tool.uv.sources]
my-ws-member = { workspace = true }

[tool.uv.workspace]
members = ["ws/*"]

[dependency-groups]
dev = [
    "pytest>=8.3.5",
]

./ws/my-ws-member/pyproject.toml:

[project]
name = "my-ws-member"
version = "0.1.0"
description = "Add your description here"
readme = "README.md"
requires-python = ">=3.13.0"
dependencies = [
    "httpx>=0.28.1",
]

[dependency-groups]
dev = [
    "black>=25.1.0",
]

ran commands from root dir: uv sync

uv tree output:

test-ws v0.1.0
├── my-ws-member v0.1.0
│   ├── httpx v0.28.1
│   │   ├── anyio v4.9.0
│   │   │   ├── idna v3.10
│   │   │   └── sniffio v1.3.1
│   │   ├── certifi v2025.1.31
│   │   ├── httpcore v1.0.7
│   │   │   ├── certifi v2025.1.31
│   │   │   └── h11 v0.14.0
│   │   └── idna v3.10
│   └── black v25.1.0 (group: dev)
│       ├── click v8.1.8
│       ├── mypy-extensions v1.0.0
│       ├── packaging v24.2
│       ├── pathspec v0.12.1
│       └── platformdirs v4.3.6
└── pytest v8.3.5 (group: dev)
    ├── iniconfig v2.0.0
    ├── packaging v24.2
    └── pluggy v1.5.0

uv pip freeze:

anyio==4.9.0
certifi==2025.1.31
h11==0.14.0
httpcore==1.0.7
httpx==0.28.1  # <-- workspace member's dependency is included
idna==3.10
iniconfig==2.0.0
packaging==24.2
pluggy==1.5.0
pytest==8.3.5. # <-- workspace root's dev dependency-group is included
sniffio==1.3.1

What I would expect is also black the dev group-dependency from my-ws-member to also be included. And I'm puzzled why it is not

Platform

macOS Darwin 24.2.0 arm64uv

Version

uv 0.6.8 (c1ef482 2025-03-18)

[charliermarsh]

This is intentional. uv sync installs the workspace root by default, and so you get the workspace root's dev dependencies. If you want the dev dependency for a member, you should uv sync -p that member. Just like you wouldn't want to import one of the member's dependencies from the root package without declaring it as a dependency yourself, you shouldn't be accessing dev dependencies on members like that.

[charliermarsh]

You can run uv sync --all-packages to install the root and all members, which I believe would install all of their dev dependencies too.

[RensDimmendaal]

@charliermarsh thank you so much for the quick reply. uv sync --all-packages was indeed the command that I had missed. Thanks again, I really enjoy using uv.