Pipx & Virtual Environments

[chrisfinazzo]

Describe the bug

Disclaimer: I am new to Python, apologies if this question has been answered elsewhere.

I want to create a virtual environment which contains its own version of Python and a tool which will be used in several different projects. pipx run APP seems to do this, but the environments are more temporary than I would want.

Previously, I tried to do this using pyenv + pyenv-virtualenv, but couldn't get it to work consistently. In addition, the virtualenv plugin appears to be abandoned, so I need an alternative.

Expected behavior
Having come from rbenv, I expected similar behavior but was disappointed. E.g, a .python-version file with the version of Python that I installed and the environment switches automatically when I navigate to this directory.

With this in mind, what is the current best practice for using virtual environments with pipx? For reference, .local with v3.9 is shown below to illustrate my current setup.

[itsayellow]

You probably want to install your app using pipx install with the --python option

pipx install --python /path/to/python my-package

Which will install my-package and adds whatever apps / binaries it has associated with it in ~/.local/bin if you are using the default settings.

If ~/.local/bin is in your PATH (perhaps because you ran pipx ensurepath once in the past) then you should be able to use those apps from your shell.

pipx is a wrapper around the plain python virtual environment, so if you want more control you can investigate that
https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/venv.html

[itsayellow]

@chrisfinazzo are you good? Can we close this issue?

[chrisfinazzo]

@itsayellow I think so. I ended up continuing with the configuration I described - just using the built-in venv module and it seems to work fine.