Pixi: Package Management Made Easy

Overview

pixi is a cross-platform, multi-language package manager and workflow tool built on the foundation of the conda ecosystem. It provides developers with an exceptional experience similar to popular package managers like cargo or npm, but for any language.

Developed with ❤️ at prefix.dev.

Highlights

• Supports multiple languages including Python, C++, and R using Conda packages. You can find available packages on prefix.dev.
• Compatible with all major operating systems: Linux, Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon).
• Always includes an up-to-date lock file.
• Provides a clean and simple Cargo-like command-line interface.
• Allows you to install tools per-project or system-wide.
• Entirely written in Rust and built on top of the rattler library.

Getting Started

• ⚡ Installation
• ⚙️ Examples
• 📚 Documentation
• 😍 Contributing
• 🔨 Built using Pixi
• 🚀 GitHub Action

Status

Pixi is ready for production! We are working hard to keep file-format changes compatible with the previous versions so that you can rely on Pixi with peace of mind.

Some notable features we envision for upcoming releases are:

• Build and publish your project as a Conda package.
• Support for dependencies from source.
• More powerful "global installation" of packages towards a deterministic setup of global packages on multiple machines.

Installation

pixi can be installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows. The provided scripts will automatically download the latest version of pixi, extract it, and move the pixi binary to ~/.pixi/bin. If this directory does not exist, the script will create it.

macOS and Linux

To install Pixi on macOS and Linux, open a terminal and run the following command:

curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | sh
# or with brew
brew install pixi

The script will also update your ~/.bashrc to include ~/.pixi/bin in your PATH, allowing you to invoke the pixi command from anywhere. You might need to restart your terminal or source your shell for the changes to take effect.

Starting with macOS Catalina zsh is the default login shell and interactive shell. Therefore, you might want to use zsh instead of bash in the install command:

curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | zsh

The script will also update your ~/.zshrc to include ~/.pixi/bin in your PATH, allowing you to invoke the pixi command from anywhere.

Windows

To install Pixi on Windows, open a PowerShell terminal (you may need to run it as an administrator) and run the following command:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm -useb https://pixi.sh/install.ps1 | iex"

Changing the execution policy allows running a script from the internet. Check the script you would be running with:

powershell -c "irm -useb https://pixi.sh/install.ps1 | more"

The script will inform you once the installation is successful and add the ~/.pixi/bin directory to your PATH, which will allow you to run the pixi command from any location. Or with winget

winget install prefix-dev.pixi

Autocompletion

To get autocompletion follow the instructions for your shell. Afterwards, restart the shell or source the shell config file.

Bash (default on most Linux systems)

Add the following to the end of ~/.bashrc:

# ~/.bashrc

eval "$(pixi completion --shell bash)"

Zsh (default on macOS)

Add the following to the end of ~/.zshrc:

# ~/.zshrc

eval "$(pixi completion --shell zsh)"

PowerShell (pre-installed on all Windows systems)

Add the following to the end of Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1. You can check the location of this file by querying the $PROFILE variable in PowerShell. Typically the path is ~\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 or ~/.config/powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 on -Nix.

(& pixi completion --shell powershell) | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Fish

Add the following to the end of ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

# ~/.config/fish/config.fish

pixi completion --shell fish | source

Nushell

Add the following to your Nushell config file (find it by running $nu.config-path in Nushell):

mkdir $"($nu.data-dir)/vendor/autoload"
pixi completion --shell nushell | save --force $"($nu.data-dir)/vendor/autoload/pixi-completions.nu"

Elvish

Add the following to the end of ~/.elvish/rc.elv:

# ~/.elvish/rc.elv

eval (pixi completion --shell elvish | slurp)

Distro Packages

Arch Linux

You can install pixi from the extra repository using pacman:

pacman -S pixi

Alpine Linux

pixi is available for Alpine Edge. It can be installed via apk after enabling the testing repository.

apk add pixi

Build/install from source

pixi is 100% written in Rust and therefore it can be installed, built and tested with cargo. To start using pixi from a source build run:

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi.git pixi

We don't publish to crates.io anymore, so you need to install it from the repository. The reason for this is that we depend on some unpublished crates which disallows us to publish to crates.io.

or when you want to make changes use:

cargo build
cargo test

If you have any issues building because of the dependency on rattler checkout it's compile steps

Uninstall

To uninstall, the Pixi binary should be removed. Delete pixi from the $PIXI_DIR which is default to ~/.pixi/bin/pixi

So on Linux its:

rm ~/.pixi/bin/pixi

and on Windows:

$PIXI_BIN = "$Env:LocalAppData\pixi\bin\pixi"; Remove-Item -Path $PIXI_BIN

After this command you can still use the tools you installed with pixi. To remove these as well just remove the whole ~/.pixi directory and remove the directory from your path.

Usage

The cli looks as follows:

➜ pixi
Pixi [version 0.50.1] - Developer Workflow and Environment Management for Multi-Platform, Language-Agnostic Workspaces.

Pixi is a versatile developer workflow tool designed to streamline the management of your workspace's dependencies, tasks, and environments.
Built on top of the Conda ecosystem, Pixi offers seamless integration with the PyPI ecosystem.

Basic Usage:
    Initialize pixi for a workspace:
    $ pixi init
    $ pixi add python numpy pytest

    Run a task:
    $ pixi task add test 'pytest -s'
    $ pixi run test

Found a Bug or Have a Feature Request?
Open an issue at: https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi/issues

Need Help?
Ask a question on the Prefix Discord server: https://discord.gg/kKV8ZxyzY4

For more information, see the documentation at: https://pixi.sh

Usage: pixi [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Commands:
  add          Adds dependencies to the workspace [aliases: a]
  auth         Login to prefix.dev or anaconda.org servers to access private channels
  build        Workspace configuration
  clean        Cleanup the environments
  completion   Generates a completion script for a shell
  config       Configuration management
  exec         Run a command and install it in a temporary environment [aliases: x]
  global       Subcommand for global package management actions [aliases: g]
  info         Information about the system, workspace and environments for the current machine
  init         Creates a new workspace
  import       Imports a file into an environment in an existing workspace.
  install      Install an environment, both updating the lockfile and installing the environment [aliases: i]
  list         List workspace's packages [aliases: ls]
  lock         Solve environment and update the lock file without installing the environments
  reinstall    Re-install an environment, both updating the lockfile and re-installing the environment
  remove       Removes dependencies from the workspace [aliases: rm]
  run          Runs task in the pixi environment [aliases: r]
  search       Search a conda package
  self-update  Update pixi to the latest version or a specific version
  shell        Start a shell in a pixi environment, run `exit` to leave the shell [aliases: s]
  shell-hook   Print the pixi environment activation script
  task         Interact with tasks in the workspace
  tree         Show a tree of workspace dependencies [aliases: t]
  update       The `update` command checks if there are newer versions of the dependencies and updates the `pixi.lock` file and environments accordingly
  upgrade      Checks if there are newer versions of the dependencies and upgrades them in the lockfile and manifest file
  upload       Upload a conda package
  workspace    Modify the workspace configuration file through the command line
  help         Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -V, --version  Print version

Global Options:
  -h, --help           Display help information
  -v, --verbose...     Increase logging verbosity (-v for warnings, -vv for info, -vvv for debug, -vvvv for trace)
  -q, --quiet...       Decrease logging verbosity (quiet mode)
      --color <COLOR>  Whether the log needs to be colored [env: PIXI_COLOR=] [default: auto] [possible values: always, never, auto]
      --no-progress    Hide all progress bars, always turned on if stderr is not a terminal [env: PIXI_NO_PROGRESS=]

Creating a Pixi workspace

Initialize a new workspace and navigate to the workspace directory

pixi init myworkspace
cd myworkspace

Add the dependencies you want to use

pixi add cowpy

Run the installed package in its environment

pixi run cowpy "Thanks for using pixi"

Activate a shell in the environment

pixi shell
cowpy "Thanks for using pixi"
exit

Check out https://pixi.sh/dev/first_workspace/ for a more detailed introduction to workspaces.

Installing a conda package globally

You can also globally install conda packages into their own environment. This behavior is similar to pipx or condax.

pixi global install cowpy

Use in GitHub Actions

You can use Pixi in GitHub Actions to install dependencies and run commands. It supports automatic caching of your environments.

- uses: prefix-dev/setup-pixi@v0.8.1
- run: pixi exec cowpy "Thanks for using pixi"

See the documentation for more details.

Contributing 😍

We would absolutely love for you to contribute to Pixi! Whether you want to start an issue, fix a bug you encountered, or suggest an improvement, every contribution is greatly appreciated.

If you're just getting started with our project or stepping into the Rust ecosystem for the first time, we've got your back! We recommend beginning with issues labeled as good first issue. These are carefully chosen tasks that provide a smooth entry point into contributing.These issues are typically more straightforward and are a great way to get familiar with the project.

Got questions or ideas, or just want to chat? Join our lively conversations on Discord. We're very active and would be happy to welcome you to our community. Join our discord server today!

Built using Pixi

To see what's being built with pixi check out the Community page.