venvlink 0.4.0

Creating the virtual environment outside of the project folder, still retaining the feel of good ol' "python -m venv venv".

   

🔗 venvlink

The aim of venvlink is simply to create the virtual environment outside of the project folder, to a centralized location, but feel like you would be using python -m venv venv and ./venv/Scripts/activate.

Without venvlink

This is how work with virtual environments looks like with python -m venv venv:

With venvlink

With venvlink the virtual environment is created in a centralized folder, and only a proxy ("link") of the activate script is created to the project folder:

Motivation

The reason for one using venvlink might be one or multiple from below.

🚫📤 don't backup venv/*

If you want to keep your virtual environments from being backed up to e.g. OneDrive/Dropbox or other backup service with your project files, venvlink is one way to do it. You might want to do this to save space on your cloud storage or resources on your computer / network (prevent checking and uploading new/modified files).

🗂️🧹centralized & tidy

If you want to centralize your virtual environments just because you think it is clean or it makes you happy.

✨♻️ reusability

If you want to reuse some of your virtual environments in multiple projects (sharing same imports) or want to use a general (tmp) virtual environment for all of your one-off testing, for example.

🏗️✔️relocating projects

If you want to be able to relocate projects on hard disk (on same machine) by just copy-pasting them, even with virtual environments.

🔑🎯 activating like you've always done

If you want to have centralized virtual environments, but would still want to activate them as you have always done: with

./venv/Scripts/activate

The activate script in your project folder is just a proxy ("link") for the real activate script located elsewhere. There is no need to remember the name of the virtual environment as with some other virtual environment management tools.

🗑️🤝 remove anytime

The venvlink philosophy is that a tool should not chain it's user. You can remove it anytime and your virtual environments and activate proxy scripts will still work. Venvlink is only used for creation of virtual environments.

💼✔️ works with an existing venv collection

If you happen to have already a collection of virtual environments inside one folder, you can start using them with venvlink right away. Just configure the venv_folder in the .venvlinkrc, and you're good to go.

🐍🐍 multipython

It is not a problem if you have multiple python versions installed. The syntax is

<path_to_python_exe> -m venvlink ...

Therefore, you can use venvlink on Python 3.6.4 32-bit and Python 3.9.2 64-bit at the same time. What you need to do is to install venvlink for both python versions with

<path_to_python_exe> -m pip install venvlink
<path_to_another_python_exe> -m pip install venvlink

and the rest you can use normally. Note that virtual environments in the centralized folder will have the same python version which was used to create the virtual environment in the first place. You can later on use your main python executable to create more links for an existing virtual environment, no matter what version of python it is using. Use descriptive venv names to distinguish the venvs with different python versions, if needed.

🚫🔮 no magic

venvlink is a really simple tool. All it does is

• Runs python -m venv projname, inside the centralized venv folder
• Creates activate scripts inside your project dir, that act as proxies ("links") for the real activate scripts.

In addition there are some convenience scripts, for removing a venv or overwriting a proxy activate script. But that's about it.

Installing

Requirements

venvlink is currently supporting only Windows, but it shouldn't be too hard to create Linux/maxOS support. I personally use only Windows, but I would be really happy to receive pull request(s) for Linux/macOS support.

Installation with pip

pip install venvlink

^{For installation for development, see CONTRIBUTING.md.}

Getting started

🛠️ Initializing configure file

To create the initial .venvlinkrc file, use command

python -m venvlink --init

✨ Creating virtual environment

Assume that you have a project at

C:\workdir\someproject\

and that you are in command line inside that folder (call it, <project_root>). Then, you would like to create virtual environment for that folder.

Instead of the regular

# at C:\workdir\someproject\
python -m venv venv

One would type

# at C:\workdir\someproject\
python -m venvlink project-name

This would create the following folders:

C:\workdir\someproject\venv
   ^-- This has only few files, such as the "activate" script.

C:\<venvlink-venv-path>\project-name
   ^--- The actual virtual environment files are here!

The first folder is for using the virtual environment normally, just like you have used to (running venv/Scripts/activate) and the second folder is for storing the actual virtual environment files.

📖❔ Getting help

You can use the -h flag:

PS C:\somepath\project> python -m venvlink -h

usage: venvlink [-h] [--init] [-d] [-S] [projectname]

venvlink 0.3.1

positional arguments:
  projectname

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --init                Initiate the venvlink configuration file (.venvlinkrc)
  -d, --delete          Delete the virtual environment associated with project_name (instead of creating)
  -S, --system-site-packages
                        Give the virtual environment access to the system site-packages dir.

🗑️ Removing virtual environments

If you want to fully remove a virtual environment and all its contents, you can either run

python -m venvlink -d <venv_to_be_removed>

or just navigate to the centralized virtual env folder, and remove the folder(s) you want. There is no centralized bookkeeping between the virtual environments and the activate proxies (just a one-way link from proxy to the venv), and therefore all activate proxies associated with the venv will stop working after deletion, or until a venv with same name is created.

If you want to just remove the link between a virtual environment and your project, you can safely remove the activate proxy/link from your project folder. If you are planning to create a link to another virtual environment, you can simply

python -m venvlink anothervenv

All what this does is recreates the proxy and, if anothervenv does not exist, creates anothervenv.

🛠️ Configuration

Location of .venvlinkrc

The configuration file, .venvlinkrc should be located at

%USERPROFILE%\.venvlinkrc

which usually translates into C:\Users\USER\.venvlinkrc.

Contents of .venvlinkrc

Here is an example default config (copy-paste):

[general]
venv_folder = C:\Users\USER\venvs

[general]: venv_folder
This is the folder where all the virtual environment are stored, in subfolders.

Considerations

🔍❕ Special cases

Moving your virtual environment to centralized place means that you'll might have to tell to some tools where you have located your virtual environments. One example is pylint, which needs to kown where the project venv is located, to prevent false positive import-errors. See: Usage with linters (e.g. pylint).

💡📁 File structure tip

Following file structure has found to be useful:

C:\Python\Python365\          # python installation
C:\Python\Python386\          # python installation
C:\Python\Python386-32\       # python installation
C:\Python\Python392\          # python installation
C:\Python\venvs\              # virtual environments

since it is easy to find python.exe behind for creating a venv

C:\Python\Python386\python.exe -m venvlink myproj

and it is also easy to browse the venvs when they are after a short path.

Contributing

What?	How?
🐞 Found a bug?	🎟 File an Issue
🙋‍♂️ Need help?	❔ Ask a question on StackOverflow
💡 Got a suggestion?	🎫 File an Issue (feature request)
🧙 Want to write code?	🔥 Here's how you get started!