Preventing global package install with `PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV`

Posted on 05 Nov, 2021
To make sure you have an virtual env activated whenever you do pip install, add the following line to your .bashrc
export PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=true
If you now try to install packages outside a virtual environment pip will remind you.
$ pip install django
ERROR: Could not find an activated virtualenv (required).
In some cases you will need to install global packages (like vim plugins etc). For that create a separate bash function like this
gpip() {
    PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=false pip "[email protected]"
}

Last modified 1yr ago