uvx-gh

Thin wrapper to uvx-run a tool published as a GitHub repo at github.com/<user>/<tool>[@<ref>].

Install

# One-off run
uvx uvx-gh alice/foo

# Or install
pip install uvx-gh
# pip install git+https://github.com/qsoyq/uvx-gh.git    # latest from GitHub

Usage

uvx-gh [uvx-options...] USER/TOOL[@REF] [tool-args...]
uvx-gh [uvx-options...] --user USER TOOL[@REF] [tool-args...]

The USER/TOOL short path takes priority over --user. Either is required.

Ref suffix

Extras (PEP 508)

Append [extras] to the tool name to request optional dependency groups, just like pip install pkg[extras]:

# httpx CLI requires the [cli] extras (click + pygments + rich) to actually run
uvx-gh encode/httpx[cli] -- https://example.com

# Multiple extras + a pinned ref
uvx-gh "encode/httpx[cli,http2]@master" -- https://example.com

Internally this becomes a PEP 508 direct reference forwarded to uvx:

uvx --from "httpx[cli] @ git+https://github.com/encode/httpx@<sha>" httpx ...

Extras do not participate in the sha cache key — the same <user>/<tool> shares one ls-remote result across every extras combination, and @latest on any variant refreshes the sha for all of them. uv keeps a separate venv per extras combination under ~/.cache/uv/environments-v2/<hash>/.

Quote the spec when extras contain commas, otherwise the shell may treat , or brackets specially in some contexts.

--no-git (skip the system git binary)

uv itself shells out to the system git binary when installing a git+https:// source. On hosts without git (typical Windows boxes that only have uv installed), the install fails with Git executable not found.

Pass --no-git (or set UVX_GH_NO_GIT=1) to emit a GitHub archive tarball URL instead — uv then downloads over plain HTTP and never calls git:

uvx-gh --no-git qsoyq/ai-assistant -- --help
# → uvx --from "https://github.com/qsoyq/ai-assistant/archive/<sha>.tar.gz" ai-assistant --help

Caveats:

• Public repos only. Private repos still need git credentials.
• uv does not reuse a git checkout cache for tarballs, so each new sha re-downloads.

Why the sha cache?

uvx --from git+https://... (without a pinned commit) makes uv re-fetch HEAD from GitHub on every call — that's a network roundtrip per invocation. uvx-gh resolves HEAD itself via the smart-HTTP ls-remote protocol (using dulwich, no system git needed) and pins the URL to the resolved sha (git+...@<sha>). After the first run, subsequent calls hit the local cache and incur zero network traffic until you explicitly use @latest.

Cache location:

• $UVX_GH_CACHE_HOME if set
• otherwise $XDG_CACHE_HOME/uvx-gh/ (default ~/.cache/uvx-gh/)

Layout: <cache_dir>/github.com/<user>/<tool> containing the sha as a single line.

Pass-through

Anything the wrapper does not recognize is forwarded:

• Tokens before TOOL_SPEC go to uvx (e.g. --python 3.12, --with extras)
• Tokens after TOOL_SPEC go to the tool itself
• -- ends wrapper-arg parsing; everything after -- is treated as tool args

uvx-gh --python 3.12 alice/foo --port 8080
# → uvx --python 3.12 --from git+https://github.com/alice/foo foo --port 8080

uvx-gh -- alice/foo --user bob
# → uvx --from git+https://github.com/alice/foo foo --user bob
#   (--user bob is forwarded to foo, NOT consumed by uvx-gh)

Requirements

uvx-gh depends on the uv toolchain (which provides the uvx binary). It does not require the system git CLI — HEAD resolution uses dulwich (pure Python, bundled as a runtime dep).

Install uv:

uvx-gh runs a pre-flight check at startup and exits with a friendly message if uvx is not on PATH.

Notes

• On Windows, os.execvp is emulated; signal/exit-code semantics differ slightly from POSIX.
• The UVX_VALUE_FLAGS whitelist in uvx_gh/commands/main.py is hand-synced with uv's value-taking flags. Use --flag=value form to bypass the whitelist if a new uv flag is missing.