wppm — Manage your Python packages

wppm is a complement to pip, for any Python environment (it was born in WinPython, the portable Windows distribution, but does not require it). Keep using pip to install and remove things — use wppm to see what is actually there.

pip install wppm

Global navigation commands

What packages are there? package version and summary

$ wppm -ls
Package            Version        Summary
__________________ ______________ ______________________________________________________________________
build              1.5.0          A simple, correct Python build frontend
certifi            2026.6.17      Python package for providing Mozilla's CA Bundle.
charset-normalizer 3.4.9          The Real First Universal Charset Detector. Open, modern and actively m
...

What did I actually ask for? Nothing in an environment records which packages you chose and which merely came along. -tl keeps only the entries nothing else pulls in:

$ wppm -tl
build
duckdb
flake8
flit
pandas
pillow
pipdeptree
pytest
PyYAML
wppm
# 32 entries -> 10 kept, 22 already pulled in

What are the dependencies?

$ wppm -tl -p
build==1.5.0 ,
    colorama==0.4.6 ;os_name==nt
    packaging==26.2 >=24.0
    pyproject-hooks==1.2.0
duckdb==1.5.4
flake8==7.1.1 ,
    mccabe==0.7.0 (<0.8.0,>=0.7.0)
...

Navigation per package(s)

What does a package need? -p walks downwards, -l says how many levels:

$ wppm -p pandas -l2
pandas==3.0.3 ,
    numpy==2.4.6 >=2.3.3;python_version>=3.14
    python-dateutil==2.9.0.post0 >=2.8.2,
        six==1.17.0 >=1.5
    tzdata==2025.3 ;sys_platform==win32

What packages are upgrade constrained? -r walks upwards, and ! keeps only the packages that pin or cap the one you name, . means to look for every package:

$ wppm -r  ".!"
charset-normalizer==3.4.9 ,
    requests==2.34.2 [requires: charset-normalizer<4,>=2]
idna==3.18 ,
    requests==2.34.2 [requires: idna<4,>=2.5]
...

Quoting: ! and [ are shell metacharacters in POSIX shells, so quote any argument containing them (wppm -r "pluggy!"). In cmd.exe the quotes are optional.

Package [Extras] analysis

use brackets to specify extra(s) [extra], [.] means every extra, and ! narrows the answer to what is missing — ==? marks a requirement that is not installed:

What am I missing, per flit extra?

$ wppm -p "flit![.]"
flit[doc]==3.12.0 ,
    pygments-github-lexers==? ;extra==doc
    sphinx==? ;extra==doc
    sphinxcontrib-github-alt==? ;extra==doc
flit[test]==3.12.0 ,
    pytest-cov==? ;extra==test
    responses==? ;extra==test
    testpath==? ;extra==test
    tomli==? ;extra==test

Which package[extra] may want numpy?

$ wppm -r "numpy[.]"
numpy==2.4.6 ,
    pandas==3.0.3 [requires: numpy>=2.3.3;python_version>=3.14]
numpy[all]==2.4.6 ,
    duckdb[all]==1.5.4 [requires: numpy;extra==all]

Pruning a requirements file

Given a file, -tl answers for that file's entries. Plainly, it prints the pruned list and nothing else — so the output is a reduced requirement file, -v will include the reason for each pruned package:

$ wppm requirements.txt -tl > requirements_new.txt
# 160 entries -> 112 kept, 48 already pulled in
# 8 repeated, collapsed: brotli, openai, pympler, pytest, python-barcode, ...

$ wppm requirements.txt -tl -v
# requirements.txt, sorted, 2026-08-13 19:22:43
# 160 entries -> 112 kept, 48 already pulled in
...
#numpy  # <- baresql, clarabel, cvxpy, dask[array,dataframe,diagnostics], datashader, ...
#scikit-learn  # <- imbalanced-learn, mlxtend, prince, skrub, umap-learn
#whatthepatch  # <- spyder

Answers a script can read

-p, -r, -tl, -ls and -md all accept -j / --json, so the same answers can gate a CI job or be diffed between two environments:

$ wppm -p myapp -j | python -c "import sys,json; s=json.load(sys.stdin); [s.extend(n['depends']) for n in s]; sys.exit(1 if any(not n['installed'] for n in s) else 0)"

Better still, skip the terminal: the tree engine is a plain importable module — no subprocess, no parsing of terminal output.

>>> from wppm import piptree
>>> pip = piptree.PipData()             # or PipData(target=r"D:\WPy64\python")
>>> print(pip.down("pandas", "mysql"))
pandas[mysql]==3.0.3 ,
    numpy==2.4.6 >=2.3.3;python_version>=3.14
    pymysql==? >=1.1.1;extra==mysql
    python-dateutil==2.9.0.post0 >=2.8.2,
        six==1.17.0 >=1.5
    sqlalchemy==? >=2.0.36;extra==mysql
    tzdata==2025.3 ;sys_platform==win32
>>> pip.summary("pandas")
'Powerful data structures for data analysis, time series, and statistics'

down() and up() return indented text by default, or a JSON string with format="json"; both take top_level=True to start from the top-level entries. top_level() itself returns plain data — kept, and dropped mapping each dropped entry to whatever pulls it in:

>>> pip.top_level()["kept"]
['build', 'duckdb', 'flake8', 'flit', 'pandas', 'pillow', 'pipdeptree', 'pytest', 'PyYAML', 'wppm']
>>> pip.top_level(["pandas", "numpy", "requests[socks]", "pytest"])["dropped"]
{'numpy': ['pandas']}

Comparing two package lists

-md writes a package index. -diff compares two:

$ wppm -diff WinPythonslim-64bit-3.13.5.0.md WinPythonslim-64bit-3.14.7.0.md
## Changes from WinPythonslim-64bit-3.13.5.0 to WinPythonslim-64bit-3.14.7.0

### Python packages

New packages:
  * aiofile 3.9.0 (Asynchronous file operations.)

Upgraded packages:
  * numpy 2.2.6 → 2.5.2 (Fundamental package for array computing in Python)

Removed packages:
  * astropy 6.1.6 (Astronomy and astrophysics core library)

Any two indexes, in any order: two releases a year apart, or two flavors of the same one. No distribution is involved, so two downloaded files are enough. WinPython publishes one index per release and flavor, in changelogs/.

Environments you have not installed anything into

-t points wppm at another Python distribution, and -ws at a plain directory of wheels — so you can inspect a portable distribution, or an offline bundle, without installing it first:

$ wppm -p "pandas[.]" -t D:\WPy64\python
$ wppm -ls -ws .\wheelhouse\included.wheels --json

With -ws the facts come from the wheelhouse rather than an installation, so a requirements list can be pruned before anything is built; where several versions of a package are present, the newest one answers.

Beyond inspection, wppm installs from a wheelhouse or a pylock.toml (-i, -ws, -wd), emits a one-document environment manifest — distribution, tools, packages, wheelhouse — as Markdown or JSON (-md, a lightweight SBOM), and does portability housekeeping: on any Windows Python, --movable / --fix rewrite the Scripts\ launchers and shebangs between relative and absolute paths, so a directory can be moved (or pinned back down) without breaking its entry points.

--register / --unregister associate file extensions, icons, context menu and start menu entries with the target Python. Each distribution gets its own start menu folder, so registering one never disturbs another — but note that the target is declared under the WinPython PEP-514 vendor key.

wppm -h lists every option.

Links

• Source code: https://github.com/winpython/winpython
• Issues and feature requests: https://github.com/winpython/winpython/issues
• Discussions: https://github.com/winpython/winpython/discussions
• WinPython distribution: https://winpython.github.io/