---
id: dependency-groups
version: "1.3.1"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# dependency-groups — A tool for resolving PEP 735 Dependency Group data

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 6.9M/mo

## What it is and what it does

dependency-groups is a library that implements PEP 735 Dependency Groups, a standard for organizing optional dependencies in pyproject.toml files. It provides a resolver that parses definitions, follows include directives, and outputs resolved dependency lists. The package is useful for projects that want to organize optional dependencies into logical groups—such as dev, test, docs, or feature-specific sets—and then install or validate them programmatically or from the command line.

The library ships with both a Python API (DependencyGroupResolver and resolve() function) and CLI tools: a module command to print contents, a linter to validate all groups in a project, a wrapper for pip install, and a pre-commit hook. It supports Python 3.8 through 3.13 on CPython and PyPy, with no compiled dependencies.

Use it for:

- Organize development, testing, and documentation dependencies into named groups in pyproject.toml and resolve them programmatically.
- Validate all groups in a project during CI/CD using the lint-dependency-groups CLI command.
- Install a specific group from the command line using pip-install-dependency-groups without manually listing packages.
- Integrate linting into pre-commit hooks to catch malformed groups before commit.
- Build tooling that needs to read and process PEP 735 metadata from project files.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Parses and resolves PEP 735 dependency groups from pyproject.toml, following includes and providing both programmatic and CLI access to group contents.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no security vulnerabilities, carries a permissive MIT license, and solves a real problem for projects adopting PEP 735. Install friction is minimal. It is useful both as a library for tools that need to parse groups and as a CLI utility for developers managing complex optional dependencies.

## Install

pip install dependency-groups
uv add dependency-groups
poetry add dependency-groups

## Installing dependency-groups

Before you install: Low friction: pure Python wheel with only two lightweight runtime dependencies (packaging and tomli). Active maintenance with recent commits; last release 469 days ago but repository shows ongoing activity.

License in practice: MIT license permits unrestricted use, modification, and distribution with minimal obligations—suitable for any project type.

Quickstart:

pip install dependency-groups

from dependency_groups import resolve

# Resolve a group from pyproject.toml
deps = resolve('dev')
print(deps)  # List of dependency specifiers

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package handles all edge cases in PEP 735 or has known limitations in resolution.
- Performance characteristics when resolving deeply nested or circular includes.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 6.9M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

pep 735 dependency groups, parse dependency groups pyproject.toml, resolve optional dependencies, dependency group resolver, pip install dependency groups, lint dependency groups, manage project dependencies, pep-735, dependency-management, pyproject-toml

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