uv, the python package manager

uv is “an extremely fast Python package and project manager, written in Rust.” I would classify it as a pip-like package manager, and moreover, the best package manager for most new projects.

It’s getting strong reviews, e.g. Loopwerk’s one.. Source can be found at astral-sh/uv.

Claimed highlights:

• 🚀 A single tool to replace pip, pip-tools, pipx, poetry, pyenv, twine, virtualenv, and more.
• ⚡️ 10–100x faster than pip.
• 🐍 Installs and manages Python versions.
• 🛠️ Runs and installs Python applications.
• ❇️ Runs scripts, with support for inline dependency metadata.
• 🗂️ Provides comprehensive project management, with a universal lockfile.
• 🔩 Includes a pip-compatible interface for a performance boost with a familiar CLI.
• 🏢 Supports Cargo-style workspaces for scalable projects.
• 💾 Disk-space efficient, with a global cache for dependency deduplication.
• ⏬ Installable without Rust or Python via curl or pip.
• 🖥️ Supports macOS, Linux, and Windows.

uv is backed by Astral, the creators of Ruff.

Notably, uv has deep, highly specific pytorch support, so if you are doing ML on the GPU, this might be a good choice.

One thing it does not provide is a build back-end; we need to choose one. Who knew that was a thing? I did not know there was a build-front-end/vs build-backend distinction.

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Determine your shell (e.g., with `echo $SHELL`), then run one of:
echo 'eval "$(uv generate-shell-completion bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(uv generate-shell-completion zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo 'uv generate-shell-completion fish | source' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish

function __fish_uv_run_completions
    set -l uv_output (uv run 2>/dev/null)
    string match -r -- '^\s*- (\w+)' $uv_output | cut -d' ' -f2
end

complete -c uv -n '__fish_seen_subcommand_from run' -a '(__fish_uv_run_completions)'

uv init --package --build-backend hatch

uv venv --python 3.12 # or other version

uv sync --upgrade