Refactor development guide

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ and this project uses [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html)
 
 ### Changed
 
+- Refactored our development guide to clarify development environment setup and how to run tests
+  ([@jhkennedy](https://github.com/jhkennedy))
 - Use built-in `assert` statements instead of `unittest` assertions in
   integration tests ([#743](https://github.com/nsidc/earthaccess/issues/743))
   ([@chuckwondo](https://github.com/chuckwondo))

docs/contributing/development.md

@@ -11,22 +11,97 @@
 In order to develop new features or fix bugs etc. we need to set up a virtual
 environment and install the library locally.
 
-## Quickstart development
+## Development environment setup
 
-The fastest way to start with development is to use nox. If you don't have nox,
-you can use `pipx run nox` to run it without installing, or `pipx install nox`.
-If you don't have pipx (pip for applications), then you can install with
-`pip install pipx` (the only case were installing an application with regular
-pip is reasonable). If you use macOS, then pipx and nox are both in brew, use
-`brew install pipx nox`.
 
-To use, run `nox` without any arguments.  This will run the type check and unit
-test "sessions" (tasks) using your local (and active) Python version.
-Nox handles everything for you, including setting up a temporary virtual
-environment for each run.
+There are a few options for setting up a development environment; you can use Python's `venv`, use `conda`/`mamba`, or _not_
+manage one yourself and use `pipx` to run tests and build docs with `nox`.
 
-You can see all available sessions with `nox --list`:
+* If you're a Windows user, you'll likely want to set up an environment yourself with `conda`/`mamba`.
+* If you're working in a JupyterHub, you'll likely want to set up an environment yourself with `conda`/`mamba`.
+* If you're using an IDE like VS Code or PyCharm, you'll likely want to set up an environment yourself with `venv` or `conda`/`mamba`.
+* If you're using a plain text editor and don't know how to or want to manage a virtual environment, you'll likely want to start with `pipx`.
+
+=== "`venv`"
+
+    `venv` is a virtual environment manager that's built into Python.
+
+    Create and activate the development environment with:
+
+    ```bash
+    python -m venv .venv
+    source .venv/bin/activate
+    ```
+
+    Then install `earthaccess` into the environment in editable mode with the optional development dependencies:
+
+    ```bash
+    python -m pip install --editable ".[dev,test,docs]"
+    ```
+
+
+=== "`conda`/`mamba`"
+
+    `conda` and `mamba` are open-source package and environment managers that are language and platform agnostic.
+    `mamba` is a newer and faster re-implementation of `conda` -- you can use either `conda` or `mamba`
+    in the commands below.
+
+    After you have followed [the `conda`/`mamba` installation instructions](https://docs.conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/install/index.html) (we recommend Miniforge), you can create and activate the development environment with:
+
+    ```bash
+    mamba env update -f environment.yml
+    mamba activate earthaccess
+    ```
+
+    This will ensure the `earthaccess` environment exists and is up-to-date, and active it. The `earthaccess` package will
+    be installed into the environment in editable mode with the optional development dependencies.
+
+    ??? note "2024-09-23: Conda environment name changed from `earthaccess-dev` -> `earthaccess`"
+
+        On Sept. 23, 2024, the name of the conda environment changed from `earthaccess-dev` to `earthacess` to align with
+        community best practices. If you have an `earthaccess-dev` environment, we recommend deleting it and creating a new one.
+        From the repository root, you can do that with these commands:
+
+        ```bash
+        mamba env update -f environment.yml
+        mamba activate earthaccess
+        mamba env remove -n earthaccess-dev
+        ```
+
+=== "`pipx`+`nox`"
+
+    `pipx` is a tool to help you install and run end-user applications written in Python and `nox` is Python application
+    that automates testing in multiple Python environments. By using `pipx` to install `nox` and using `nox` to run common development tasks, some users can avoid the need to set up and manage a full development environment.
+    Once you have [installed `pipx` following the official instructions](https://github.com/pypa/pipx?tab=readme-ov-file#install-pipx), you can either run `nox` without installing it via:
+
+    ```bash
+    pipx run nox [NOX_ARGS]
+    ```
+
+    or install `nox` into an isolated environment and run it with:
 
+    ```bash
+    pipx install nox
+    nox [NOX_ARGS]
+    ```
+
+    `nox` handles everything for you, including setting up a temporary virtual environment for each task (e.g. running tests, building docs, etc.) you need to run.
+
+Now that your development environment is set up, you can run the tests.
+
+## Running tests
+
+We recommend using `nox` to run the various "sessions" (`nox`'s term for tasks) provided by `earthaccess`. To use, run `nox` without
+any arguments:
+
+```bash
+nox
+```
+
+This will run the type check and unit test sessions using your local (and active) Python
+version. `nox` handles everything for you, including setting up a temporary virtual environment for each run.
+
+You can see all available sessions with `nox --list`:
 ```
 $ nox --list
 Sessions defined in earthaccess/noxfile.py:
@@ -41,8 +116,7 @@ Sessions defined in earthaccess/noxfile.py:
 sessions marked with * are selected, sessions marked with - are skipped.
 ```
 
-You can also run individual tasks (_sessions_ in `nox` parlance, hence the `-s`
-option below), like so:
+You can also run individual sessions like so:
 
 ```bash
 nox -s integration-tests
@@ -54,57 +128,74 @@ and pass options to the underlying session like:
 nox -s integration-tests -- [ARGS]
 ```
 
-!!! tip
-
-    In order to run integration tests locally, you must set the
-    environment variables `EARTHDATA_USERNAME` and `EARTHDATA_PASSWORD` to your
-    username and password, respectively, of your
-    [NASA Earthdata](https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/) account (registration is
-    free).
+!!! info "Important"
 
+    In order to run integration tests locally, you must set the environment variables `EARTHDATA_USERNAME` and
+    `EARTHDATA_PASSWORD` to the username and password of your [NASA Earthdata](https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/)
+    account, respectively (registration is free).
 
+### IDE setup
 
-## Manual development environment setup
+Integrated development environments (IDEs) like VS Code and PyCharm provide powerful refactoring, testing, and
+debugging integrations, but they typically don't understand "task runners" like `nox` and won't know how to launch
+debugging or testing sessions connected to the provided integrations.
 
-While `nox` is the fastest way to get started, you will likely need a full
-development environment for making code contributions, for example to test in a
-REPL, or to resolve references in your favorite IDE.  This development
-environment also includes `nox`. You can create it with `venv`, `conda`, or `mamba`.
+Fortunately, if you've set up a development environment you should be able to call the underlying testing tools
+(e.g., `mypy` and `pytest`) directly, or run them via your IDE integrations. To understand how `nox` is running the
+underlying tools in each test session you can read the `noxfile.py` in the repository root, or, run all the test directly
+in your development environment like:
 
-=== "`venv`"
-
-    `venv` is a virtual environment manager that's built into Python.
+```bash
+nox -fb none --no-install
+```
 
-    Create and activate the development environment with:
+This will force `nox` to not use an environment backend (will just use the active environment) and not attempt to install
+any packages. When `nox` runs, it will describe the commands it executes:
 
-    ```bash
-    python -m venv .venv
-    source .venv/bin/activate
-    ```
-
-    Then install `earthaccess` into the environment in editable mode with the optional development dependencies:
+```
+$ nox -fb none --no-install
+nox > Running session typecheck
+nox > mypy
+Success: no issues found in 35 source files
+nox > Session typecheck was successful.
+nox > Running session tests
+nox > pytest tests/unit -rxXs
+========================================== test session starts ==========================================
+...
+==================================== 43 passed, 1 xfailed in 24.01s =====================================
+nox > Session tests was successful.
+nox > Ran multiple sessions:
+nox > * typecheck: success
+nox > * tests: success
+```
 
-    ```bash
-    python -m pip install --editable ".[dev,test,docs]"
-    ```
+Note these lines in particular:
 
+```
+nox > Running session typecheck
+nox > mypy
+nox > Running session tests
+nox > pytest tests/unit -rxXs
+```
 
-=== "`conda`/`mamba`"
+So to reproduce the typecheck session all you have to do is run `mypy` in your development environment. Similarly, reproducing
+the unit tests is running `pytest test/unit -rxXs`.
 
-    `conda` and `mamba` are open-source package and environment managers that are language and platform agnostic.
-    `mamba` is a newer and faster re-implementation of `conda` -- you can use either `conda` or `mamba`
-    in the commands below.
+Since we're not doing any complicated configuration or setting complicated arguments to pytest, simply hitting the "play" button
+for a pytest in your IDE should work once you've configured it to use your development environment.
 
-    Create and activate the development environment with:
+!!! info "Important"
 
+    Currently, our integration tests are *flakey* and a small number of random failures are expected. When the integration
+    test suite runs, it may return a status code of 99 if the failure rate was less than an "acceptable" threshold. Since
+    any non-zero status code is considered an error, your console and/or IDE will consider this a failure by default.
+    `nox`, however, knows about this special status code and will report a success. To get pytest or your IDE to match
+    this behavior, you can modify the special status code to be zero with the `EARTHACCESS_ALLOWABLE_FAILURE_STATUS_CODE`
+    evnironment variable:
     ```bash
-    mamba env update -f environment.yml
-    mamba activate earthaccess
+    export EARTHACCESS_ALLOWABLE_FAILURE_STATUS_CODE=0
     ```
 
-    This will update (or create if missing) the `earthaccess` environment and active it. The `earthaccess` package will
-    be installed into the environment in editable mode with the optional development dependencies.
-
 ## Managing Dependencies
 
 If you need to add a new dependency, edit `pyproject.toml` and insert the
@@ -134,14 +225,14 @@ Since `python-cmr` exposes the `cmr` package, the stubs appear under `stubs/cmr`
 To work on documentation locally, we provide a script that will automatically re-render the docs when you make changes:
 
 ```
-nox -s serve_docs
+nox -s serve-docs
 ```
 
 MkDocs does not support incremental rebuilds and will execute every Jupyter Notebook every time it builds a new
 version of the site, which can be quite slow. To speed up the build, you can pass MkDocs these options:
 
 ```
-nox -s serve_docs -- --dirty --no-strict
+nox -s serve-docs -- --dirty --no-strict
 ```
 
 !!! warning

docs/css/styles.css

@@ -1,2 +1,9 @@
 .details .open {
 }
+
+.tabbed-set {
+  padding: 5px;
+  border: 1px lightgrey;
+  border-radius: 2px;
+  border-style: solid;
+}