In principle, yes. In practice, there are a lot of issues with that workflow.
For example, `pip install --ignore-installed --dry-run --quiet --report` will build sdists (and run arbitrary code from `setup.py` or other places specified by a build backend) - just so that it can confirm that the downloaded sdist would produce a wheel with the right name and version. Even `pip download` will do the same. I'm not kidding. There are multiple outstanding issues on the tracker that are all ultimately about this problem, which has persisted through multiple versions of the UI and all the evolving packaging standards, going back almost the entire history of Pip.
For example, `pip install --ignore-installed --dry-run --quiet --report` will build sdists (and run arbitrary code from `setup.py` or other places specified by a build backend) - just so that it can confirm that the downloaded sdist would produce a wheel with the right name and version. Even `pip download` will do the same. I'm not kidding. There are multiple outstanding issues on the tracker that are all ultimately about this problem, which has persisted through multiple versions of the UI and all the evolving packaging standards, going back almost the entire history of Pip.
See for example https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/1884 ; I have a long list of related reports written down somewhere.
A security researcher was once infamously bitten by this (https://moyix.blogspot.com/2022/09/someones-been-messing-wit...).