Using and importing helpers in conftest and test files

[g0di]

Quite recently I started to get some errors from VSCode failing at discovering my tests because of something like this:

2023-08-02 17:54:03.860 [error] Error discovering pytest tests:
 [n [Error]: ImportError while loading conftest 'c:\Users\TBEBGOD\Developement\...\tests\conftest.py'.
tests\conftest.py:10: in <module>
    from tests.helpers import TestDataBuilder
E   ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'tests'

I'm using a src layout with tests in their own folder looking like this:

│   pyproject.toml
│       
├───src
│   │   
│   ├───data_api
│   │   │   ...
│           
└───tests
    │   conftest.py
    │   helpers.py
    │   test_e2e.py
    │   __init__.py

My pytest config is the following:

#pyproject.toml
[tool.pytest.ini_options]
addopts = [
    "--verbose",               
    "--durations=0",    
    "--import-mode=importlib"
]

If I remove the --import-mode=importlib the discovery is working back again.
If I execute the tests using python -m pytest switch, tests are running fine as well

Whether I'm using importlib as import mode or

From what I understand, when running pytest directy with importlib import mode, pytest does not add the tests folder in the path causing that error.

At the moment my question is more: What is the best/recommended way for importing helpers inside our tests considering:

• Reverting to import mode append feels to not be the solution as it is recommended to use importlib
• Running my test through python -m pytest can not be done through VSCode python extension which use a custom script to discover tests: 2023-08-02 18:11:41.126 [info] > .\.venv\Scripts\python.exe ~\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2023.12.0\pythonFiles\testing_tools\run_adapter.py discover pytest -- --rootdir . -s --cache-clear . so I loose VSCode support for running my tests
• Extracting my helpers into my production code broke clear separation between tests and tested code
• Modifying the python path through sys.path.append(...) to add my helpers seems terrible (no type checking, lot of chances to broke this on file changes ...)
• Changing my imports from from tests.helpers import ... to from .helpers import ... or from helpers import ... does not work either
• Having a __init__.py in tests folder is problematic because I can import my test code inside my production code
• Removing the __init__.py from tests folder and putting my helpers inside a tests/helpers/__init__.py does not work either using all kind of impots I could do from .helpers ... from helpers ... from tests.helpers ...

Thank you for your help ;)

[g0di]

One year later, I'm still relying on prepend import-mode and tests folder being a package (__init__.py at root). It does the job but I'm still wondering how people actually manage that, if anyone want to share.