pyenv VS Autoenv

For more information visit: pyenv repository

Note that virtual environments assume you are using the same global version of Python. Often, this is not the case and additional tools like pyenv can be used alongside virtual environments when you need to switch between versions of Python itself on your local machine.

Python version manager pyenv

First of all, install the Python virtual environment from these links: 1 and 2. I developed my GPT-based API in Python version 3.8.18. Pick any Python versions >= 3.7.

Note: Most modern systems will probably have a system environment that meets this requirement, but if yours does not or if you prefer not to install anything in your system environment (even if it's just PDM) check out asdf or pyenv to help install and manage additional Python environments.

When dealing with software development, reproducibility is key. This is why we encourage you to use Python virtual environments to set up an isolated environment for your project. Virtual environments allow the isolation of dependencies, which plays a crucial role to avoid breaking compatibility between different projects. We cannot cover all the details about virtual environments in this post, but we encourage you to learn more about venv, pyenv or conda for a better understanding on how to create and manage virtual environments.

For Python, with your use case I would avoid system packages, no matter the distro. It sounds like it would be worth setting up pyenv and working exclusively with virtual environments.

For OSX there is homebrew or pyenv (pyenv is another solution on Linux). As pyenv compiles from source it will require setting up XCode (the Apple IDE) tools to support this which can be pretty bulky. Windows users have chocolatey but the issue there is it works off the binaries. That means it won't have the latest security release available since those are source only. Conda is also another solution which can be picked up by Visual Studio Code as available versions of Python making development easier. In the end it might be best to consider using WSL on Windows for installing a Linux version and using that instead.

the way I manage (2) is with a kind of DIY pipenv system i've come up with. i have a tool installed in my terminal called autoenv. when i navigate to a new directory, if there's a .env file in it, autoenv executes it. that's basically all autoenv does. I have a .env in my home folder that, among other things, activates my "master" venv. when I create a new project that I want to have its own venv, I just add a .env file to that folder to activate it. otherwise, the master venv is active whenever I roam around my filesystem, functionally serving as a default environment i reuse.

Inspired by autoenv, pyautoenv hooks into the cd command in your shell and will automatically activate a poetry or venv Python environment if that environment is defined in the directory you're cd-ing into. Zsh, Bash, and PowerShell are supported.

There is an autoenv tool you can use to automatically activate a python virtualenv when you cd into a directory but it’s a little annoying to set up https://github.com/hyperupcall/autoenv

But IMO the best solution by far is to use autoenv. There is autoenv for bash and autoenv for zsh.