Override for `development_dependencies`

[jwoertink]

I'm trying to test an update locally on Windows, and I'm not able to use the shard override for development_dependencies.

# shard.yml
name: test
version: 0.1.0
crystal: '>= 1.14.0'
license: MIT
development_dependencies:
  db:
    github: crystal-lang/crystal-db
    version: 0.13.1

# shard.override.yml
development_dependencies:
  db:
    github: crystal-lang/crystal-db
    branch: master

> $env:SHARDS_OVERRIDE = 'shard.override.yml'
> shards install

However, I do see that overrides from dependencies make it over. It seems to be just the development_dependencies that are ignored.

Expected Output

The install output should say "Installing db (0.13.1 at 892c256)"
Checking inside of the lib\db\src I expected to see changes made since the 0.13.1 release.

Actual Output

The install output says "Installing db (0.13.1)" and the lib dir shows code from 3eaac85

[straight-shoota]

This is not specific to Windows. The same thing happens on Linux.

It looks like overrides only apply to dependencies, not to development_dependencies:

shards/src/molinillo_solver.cr

Line 46 in 9a5e5b6

add_lock base, lock_index, apply_overrides(spec.dependencies)

I'm not sure if this is completely intentional or just an omission.
The documentation only mentions that the override file provides overrides for dependencies (https://github.com/crystal-lang/shards/blob/master/docs/shards.adoc#files), although the language is a bit fuzzy because both dependencies and development_dependencies are categories of dependencies.

Btw. you don't need to set $env:SHARDS_OVERRIDE = 'shard.override.yml'. That's already the default value.

[ysbaddaden]

I don't see any issues that dependencies wouldn't have, so I guess it was just an omission.

[straight-shoota]

I suppose a possible explanation is that shards does not install nested development_dependencies, only those defined in the top shard.yml. So it's considerably more straightforward to override them there directly, compared to overriding nested dependencies' shard.yml.

Having to edit shard.yml directly is still not convenient for keeping a local override outside of git and consistent across branches etc. So I guess it makes sense to add overrides for development_dependencies as well.

[miry]

I believe I’m experiencing a related issue.

My project’s shard.yml includes:

dependencies:
  marten:
    github: miry/marten
    branch: master

  pg:
    github: will/crystal-pg
    branch: master
    commit: cafe112f2847f366262460ee999e74f9c7e8b31c   # unreleased 0.29.0

Meanwhile, the marten project declares pg as a development dependency:

development_dependencies:
  pg:
    github: will/crystal-pg

NOTE: There’s a difference in the commit — my project pins pg to a specific commit, while marten does not.
When I run:

$ shard update marten
...
Using pg (0.29.0 at cafe112)

It seems like lib/pg is replaced with the released version from GitHub (0.29.0),
but the shard.lock file still references the specific commit (cafe112...).
Additionally, .shards.info shows a mismatch — it points to the latest release commit instead of the frozen one.

Here’s the diff:

   pg:
     git: https://github.com/will/crystal-pg.git
-    version: 0.29.0+git.commit.cafe112f2847f366262460ee999e74f9c7e8b31c
+    version: 0.29.0

Workaround

In case someone else runs into the same issue — the fix for lib/pg is simply to run:

$ shards update pg

PS: To help debug this, I started adding more context to log messages: https://github.com/crystal-lang/shards/pull/674/files

UPDATE: Extracted to #675

[straight-shoota]

@miry I don't see how this has anything to do with overrides? If you don't use overrides, please create a new issue.