Hello - good question! You're also not alone the python venv (and wider packaging) world is confusing and opaque (obligatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/1987/) I can try and speak to what I do: (1) I create a custom virtual environment for each kedro project (usually with the same name as my project) (2) I use conda for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I basically have this command saved

conda create -n "my-environment" python=3.8 -y

(3) The

build-reqs

and

install

is explained here and is more about making sure you can 'fail fast' and ensure all of your project dependencies play nicely together https://kedro.readthedocs.io/en/stable/04_kedro_project_setup/01_dependencies.html#project-specific-dependencies