pathreg 1.0.1

A lightweight Python library to persistently add or remove directories from PATH.

pathreg

Persistently add or remove directories from PATH on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Installation

pip install pathreg

CLI Usage

pathreg add /some/directory
pathreg remove /some/directory
pathreg list

Python API

from pathreg import add_path, remove_path, list_paths

add_path("/some/directory")     # idempotent — skips if already present
remove_path("/some/directory")  # no-op if not found
list_paths()                    # returns list[Path] of current PATH entries

add_path and remove_path modify the shell profile and the current process's PATH immediately.

Behavior

• Paths are normalized: trailing separators stripped, slashes converted per platform.
• add_path is idempotent — does nothing if the entry already exists.
• remove_path is a no-op if the entry is absent or the profile file does not exist.

Platform support

Platform	Persistence target
Windows	HKCU\Environment via winreg; broadcasts WM_SETTINGCHANGE to notify the shell
bash	~/.bash_profile (falls back to ~/.profile if it exists)
zsh	~/.zshenv
sh	~/.profile

The active shell is detected from the SHELL environment variable.

No third-party dependencies required.