How to specify in pytest.ini that a .env file should be respected?

[Mithrandir2k18]

I have a git repo with a src/ subfolder that has all my code and a tests/ subfolder next to it that stores the tests.

I created a .env file that specifies this addition to the PYTHONPATH and in .vscode/settings.json I set the python.envFile variable, and pytest-tests now can find the module imports like import main from a file in tests/ for a src/main.py file, without doing it in conftest.py.

However if I run pytest from the terminal/in a script, it doesn't respect the .env file and I see no option in the help to specify that either.

How to configure the pytest.ini so that simply running pytest will work, without manually adding the src/ folder to the path in conftest.py?

[The-Compiler]

pytest core doesn't come with any support for .env files - but there are plugins which add that functionality, such as pytest-dotenv or pytest-env.

If this is just about PYTHONPATH, there's also pytest-pythonpath and pytest-srcpaths, with native support of a pythonpath setting being added to pytest 7.0.0 soon (see #9134).