perf: Odoo 19.0 editable install takes ~21s (36x slower than 18.0)

[trisdoan]

Problem

Installing Odoo 19.0 in editable mode takes ~21s, compared to ~0.6s for 18.0 — a 36x regression.

Root Cause

Odoo 19.0 removed __init__.py from core directories (odoo/, odoo/addons/) and switched setup.py from find_packages() to find_namespace_packages() to compensate. Because find_namespace_packages() has no exclusions, it treats every subdirectory as a Python namespace package — including static assets, i18n files, XML data, views, security configs, etc.

Root cause chain:

1. Odoo 19.0 removes __init__.py from odoo/ root → find_packages() returns 0 packages
2. Odoo switches to find_namespace_packages() to compensate
3. find_namespace_packages() has no exclusions → picks up all subdirs (static, i18n, data, views, security, tests…)
4. setuptools build_editable processes all 7,791 "packages" → generates a 680KB finder file with all namespace paths → 36x slowdown

Measurements

	Odoo 18.0	Odoo 19.0
setup.py method	find_packages()	find_namespace_packages()
Packages found	79	7,791
Packages with __init__.py	~79	1,974
Namespace-only dirs (no __init__.py)	0	5,817
Editable install time	~0.6s	~21.6s
SOURCES.txt lines	1,139	8,733
Generated __editable__ finder size	small	680KB

The 5,817 namespace-only directories are non-Python assets: addons/*/static/, addons/*/i18n/, addons/*/data/, addons/*/views/, addons/*/security/, etc.

Reproduction

uv run --with setuptools python3 -c "
from setuptools import find_namespace_packages
pkgs = find_namespace_packages(where='/path/to/odoo/19.0')
print(f'Odoo 19.0: Found {len(pkgs)} packages')
"
# Output: Odoo 19.0: Found 7791 packages

time uv pip install -e 'file:///path/to/odoo/19.0#egg=odoo' --no-deps
# real  0m21.6s

Impact

Any user creating an Odoo 19.0 venv with odoo-venv experiences a ~21s freeze at the "Installing Odoo in editable mode" step.

[nilshamerlinck]

this helps: OCA/OCB#1313
can you report result of time command after applying this patch?

[trisdoan]

Hi anh, applied the patch, here's result

Before: ~21s
After: 3.08s

Why the patch works: It forces setuptools compat editable mode, which skips that scan entirely and writes a single-line .pth (editable.odoo-19.0.pth) file instead.

[nilshamerlinck]

ftr @trisdoan had worked on a workaround to avoid re-running the uv install -e file://{odoo_dir}#egg=odoo step at each update: #3

but now odoo-venv update will be re-creating venvs on update: #60

imo this slow step is not that big of an issue given that it only happens at venv creation/updates

for our on-premise projects it's a good occasion/reason to move to oca/ocb codebase by default

fyi @hailangvn