Databento's pip-system-certs dependency causes editable package builds to fail

[DuncBegg]

Hi Databento team,

Environment

• OS: Windows 11
• Python: 3.11.9
• pip: 26.1.2
• setuptools: Reproduces across multiple versions in my environment
• databento: 0.80.0
• pip-system-certs: 5.3

Description of issue

It seems like pip-system-certs, which is a databento dependency causes problems in my dev environment where i am using editable packages.
When running my project's startup script I see the following:

1. databento pulled in pip-system-certs.
2. pip-system-certs auto-runs at Python startup via a .pth hook.
3. during pip’s isolated build subprocess for my editable packages (build_editable check), that hook reports that truststore not available.
4. That environment/initialization conflict then led to the setuptools/distutils assertion crash (distutils/core.py), causing my editable package installs to fail.

Expected behaviour

databento installation should not cause editable install workflows to fail in common pip build-isolation subprocesses.

Actual behaviour

Presence of pip-system-certs causes startup hook execution in pip build subprocesses, leading to truststore/bootstrap issues and build_editable failure.

[nmacholl]

Hey there, thanks for the report.

Can you provide a stack trace for this error? Is it the same as this issue?

While we aren't the maintainers of pip-system-certs this is a very soft dependency to improve compatability of our package on Windows. You could install the databento package without dependencies and then install the dependencies less this problematic package as a quick work around.