🐍 Don't Need to Create requirements.txt and .venv Manually [UV]

We need something better than pip — and that's where uv comes in. It’s a fast Python package manager and task runner that replaces pip, venv, and even parts of poetry, without the extra overhead.

Though previously I wrote Do not use 'pip freeze' and Best way to create requirements.txt. You can read them...

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🏁 First install uv

You can find the installation instructions for uv here

🔧 uv init: Instant Project Setup

uv init

This command creates a boilerplate pyproject.toml and sets up your .venv — no manual steps needed. It automatically detects your Python version and prepares a minimal project environment.

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➕ uv add: Add Dependencies Instantly

Need a package like rich?

uv add rich

This adds it to your pyproject.toml, installs it, and updates your uv.lock. No need to touch requirements.txt.

Example usage with rich:

from rich import print

print("[bold green]Hello from UV-powered project![/bold green]")

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🚀 uv run: Run with Environment

Instead of manually activating .venv, use:

uv run main.py

This runs your app inside the managed environment automatically.

Yes, you can still run with python main.py, but that means you'll have to activate .venv manually:

source .venv/bin/activate

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🔄 After Clone/Pull a UV based project

First run

uv venv

and then install all packages from pyproject.toml

uv sync

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📚 Want More?

There’s more you can do: uv pip, uv pip freeze, uv sync --update, and more. You can even change Python versions or set a specific version in .python-version — check it out in their docs.