Project does not install without VERSION

[LunarEngineer]

Note: The verbiage expressed here are that of the author and are not representative of State Farm.

Describe the bug

When I attempt to pip install the project from source it dies because it cannot parse the version (it's getting an empty string.)

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

pip install -e .

Expected behavior

Obtaining file:///config/workspace/TheThingStore
  Installing build dependencies ...   Checking if build backend supports build_editable ...   Getting requirements to build editable ...   Preparing editable metadata (pyproject.toml) ... Collecting pyarrow>=10.0.1 (from thethingstore==0.0.1)
  Downloading pyarrow-16.0.0-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl.metadata (3.0 kB)
Collecting pydantic>=2.4.2 (from thethingstore==0.0.1)
  Downloading pydantic-2.7.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (107 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 107.3/107.3 kB 837.3 kB/s eta 0:00:00a 0:00:01
Collecting numpy>=1.16.6 (from pyarrow>=10.0.1->thethingstore==0.0.1)
  Downloading numpy-1.26.4-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.metadata (61 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 61.0/61.0 kB 970.3 kB/s eta 0:00:00 0:00:01
Collecting annotated-types>=0.4.0 (from pydantic>=2.4.2->thethingstore==0.0.1)
  Downloading annotated_types-0.6.0-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (12 kB)
Collecting pydantic-core==2.18.2 (from pydantic>=2.4.2->thethingstore==0.0.1)
  Downloading pydantic_core-2.18.2-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.metadata (6.5 kB)
Requirement already satisfied: typing-extensions>=4.6.1 in /config/workspace/.venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages (from pydantic>=2.4.2->thethingstore==0.0.1) (4.11.0)
Downloading pyarrow-16.0.0-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl (40.8 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 40.8/40.8 MB 9.8 MB/s eta 0:00:00:00:0100:01
Downloading pydantic-2.7.1-py3-none-any.whl (409 kB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 409.3/409.3 kB 2.9 MB/s eta 0:00:0000:0100:01
Downloading pydantic_core-2.18.2-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (2.1 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 2.1/2.1 MB 10.7 MB/s eta 0:00:0000:0100:01
Downloading annotated_types-0.6.0-py3-none-any.whl (12 kB)
Downloading numpy-1.26.4-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (18.2 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 18.2/18.2 MB 12.2 MB/s eta 0:00:0000:0100:01
Building wheels for collected packages: thethingstore
  Building editable for thethingstore (pyproject.toml) ...   Created wheel for thethingstore: filename=thethingstore-0.0.1-0.editable-py3-none-any.whl size=6724 sha256=559c24ef37ffdced9a35517e2ace3faae92087c97d6f7e6d81429785b45907b4
  Stored in directory: /tmp/pip-ephem-wheel-cache-xpb9eeai/wheels/01/f3/c2/bbdc8c1ab6bcf9aa542925c6748511b6f159d0f96374b95884
Successfully built thethingstore
Installing collected packages: pydantic-core, numpy, annotated-types, pydantic, pyarrow, thethingstore
Successfully installed annotated-types-0.6.0 numpy-1.26.4 pyarrow-16.0.0 pydantic-2.7.1 pydantic-core-2.18.2 thethingstore-0.0.1
Note: you may need to restart the kernel to use updated packages.

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

Adding a VERSION file with a pep supported version will fix the issue.