@Marvin all of my flows work when i call them locall from my IDE, but when it comes to deployment everything crashes. My scripts need to have a virtual environment setup and have everything executed in that venv. is there a way to persist the venv for deployments, instead of rebuilding the venv everytime.

It looks like the topic of reusing a virtual environment for deployments in Prefect is not directly covered in the documentation or the GitHub issues. However, some related documentation and concepts might help guide you to a solution. ### Potential Solution Overview 1. Docker Environments: Using Docker can help encapsulate your environment and dependencies. This approach avoids the need to rebuild the virtual environment since the Docker image acts as a persistent environment for your flows. 2. Persisting Virtual Environments: Prefect does not natively support persisting a virtual environment across deployments. Instead, you'd generally recreate the environment as part of the deployment process. However, you can set up scripts to manage your environment creation and ensure consistency. ### References - Docker and Prefect: This guide on Kubernetes deployments demonstrates how to include Docker in your Prefect CI/CD pipeline. Docker images can persist between deployments. - CI/CD Pipelines: This CI/CD guide in Prefect Docs explains how to manage build times effectively without repeating work—relevant when thinking about caching environments. ### GitHub Issue Insights - Support for Out-of-Tree Shared Task Libraries: Prefect is considering ways to manage dependencies and task libraries, which could later evolve into a more robust solution. (Issue) ### Steps to Implement Using Docker 1. Dockerfile Setup: Create a

Dockerfile

that sets up your environment and installs dependencies.

dockerfile
   FROM python:3.9-slim

   WORKDIR /app

   COPY requirements.txt .

   RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

   COPY . .

   CMD ["prefect", "agent", "start", "local"]

2. Building the Docker Image: Build and tag your Docker image.

sh
   docker build -t my-prefect-image:latest .

3. Use Docker for Deployment: Deploy using the Docker image.

sh
   prefect deployment create path_to_flow.py \
       --name my_deployment \
       --docker-image my-prefect-image:latest

If using Docker isn't feasible for your scenario or if you have complex dependencies, you might need to script your environment setup process and ensure it's invoked at deployment time consistently. For further detail on deploying with Docker or to explore other persistent storage solutions, peruse the Prefect Kubernetes and CI/CD guides. If you have additional questions or unique requirements, feel free to add more detail!