Don't force constraints.txt when running pace tests in external repositories

[romanc]

Description

NDSL runs pace tests as part of NDSL's CI. These tests currently fail on a PR¹ because we are bringing in an updated version of gt4py with dependencies that aren't compatible with constraints.txt. This will always happen if NDSL updates a dependency. In previous cases, e.g. PR #103, people manually updated constraints.txt in NOAA-GFDL/pace before being able to merge in NOAA-GFDL/NDSL. Since NDSL is a (downstream) dependency of pace, this is the wrong way round.

The proposed solution here is to ignore the constrains.txt when running as part of the NDSL pipelines. This makes sense since then downstream dependencies can update their dependencies without pace having to do so until pace actually updates NDSL (in which case constrains.txt should be regenerated). This run shows that the PR can be unblocked by the proposed changes.

I had to restrict zarr < 3.0.0 in requirements_dev.txt because it has (as expected for a major version release), breaking API changes, which will make our tests fail.

Blocked PR: NOAA-GFDL/NDSL#119

How Has This Been Tested?

All good as long as GitHub workflows still run.

Checklist:

• My code follows the style guidelines of this project: N/A
• I have performed a self-review of my own code
• I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas: N/A
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation: N/A
• My changes generate no new warnings: N/A
• Any dependent changes have been merged and published in downstream modules: N/A
• New check tests, if applicable, are included: N/A

Footnotes

1. https://github.com/NOAA-GFDL/NDSL/actions/runs/13996303550/job/39192221212?pr=119 ↩

[romanc]

@fmalatino @twicki @FlorianDeconinck can't add reviewers due to lacking permissions. Please have a look. Thanks!

[oelbert]

Honestly we should have done something like this a long time ago

[oelbert]

Congratulations!

[romanc]

Just a reminder: I don't have permission to merge in this repo. Feel free to merge whenever you feel like.