py-pip

An experimental "pip" subcommand for the Python Launcher for Unix

Goals

• Use pip with the Python interpreter that would be selected by the Launcher
• Automatically create a minimal virtual environment if one does not exist
• Update pip automatically
• Keep a single copy of pip

Installation

Simply download a py-pip.pyz file from any of the releases.

If you want to build a py-pip.pyz from source, run nox build and find the file in the dist directory.

Usage

If you make py-pip.pyz executable, you can run it directly like it was pip, passing arguments to it that pip itself would accept.

py-pip.pyz <pip arguments>

This causes several things to happen:

1. The Python Launcher is used to find the appropriate Python interpreter to use
2. If ~/.cache/py-pip/pip.pyz does not exist, download it from https://bootstrap.pypa.io/pip/pip.pyz (the directory is determined by the XDG cache directory)
3. If the found interpreter is not within a virtual environment, a minimal one will be created in .venv next to pyproject.toml
4. Run py ~/.cache/py-pip/pip.pyz, passing along all arguments
5. In the background, check if pip.pyz is outdated, and update it if necessary