Command line

virtualenv is primarily a command line application. All options have sensible defaults, and there is one required argument: the name or path of the virtual environment to create.

See Use virtualenv for how to select Python versions, configure defaults, and use environment variables.

Command line options

virtualenv [OPTIONS]

Named Arguments
--version	'==SUPPRESS=='	display the version of the virtualenv package and its location, then exit
--with-traceback	False	on failure also display the stacktrace internals of virtualenv
--read-only-app-data	False	use app data folder in read-only mode (write operations will fail with error)
--app-data	platform specific application data folder	a data folder used as cache by the virtualenv
--reset-app-data	False	start with empty app data folder
--upgrade-embed-wheels	False	trigger a manual update of the embedded wheels

verbosity ⇒ verbosity = verbose - quiet, default INFO, mapping => CRITICAL=0, ERROR=1, WARNING=2, INFO=3, DEBUG=4, NOTSET=5
-v, --verbose	2	increase verbosity
-q, --quiet	0	decrease verbosity

discovery

core ⇒ options shared across all discovery
--discovery	'builtin'	interpreter discovery method; choice of: builtin
-p, --python	the python executable virtualenv is installed into	interpreter based on what to create environment (path/identifier/version-specifier) - by default use the interpreter where the tool is installed - first found wins. Version specifiers (e.g., >=3.12, ~=3.11.0, ==3.10) are also supported
--try-first-with	[]	try first these interpreters before starting the discovery

creator

core ⇒ options shared across all creator
--creator	builtin if exist, else venv	create environment via; choice of: cpython3-mac-brew, cpython3-mac-framework, cpython3-posix, cpython3-win, graalpy-posix, graalpy-win, pypy3-posix, pypy3-win, rustpython-posix, rustpython-win, venv
dest		directory to create virtualenv at
--clear	False	remove the destination directory if exist before starting (will overwrite files otherwise)
--no-vcs-ignore	False	don’t create VCS ignore directive in the destination directory
--system-site-packages	False	give the virtual environment access to the system site-packages dir
--symlinks	True	try to use symlinks rather than copies, when symlinks are not the default for the platform
--copies, --always-copy	False	try to use copies rather than symlinks, even when symlinks are the default for the platform

seeder

core ⇒ options shared across all seeder
--seeder	'app-data'	seed packages install method; choice of: app-data, pip
--no-seed, --without-pip	False	do not install seed packages
--no-download, --never-download	True	pass to disable download of the latest pip/setuptools/wheel from PyPI
--download	False	pass to enable download of the latest pip/setuptools/wheel from PyPI
--extra-search-dir	[]	a path containing wheels to extend the internal wheel list (can be set 1+ times)
--pip	'bundle'	version of pip to install as seed: embed, bundle, none or exact version
--setuptools	'bundle'	version of setuptools to install as seed: embed, bundle, none or exact version
--no-pip	False	do not install pip
--no-setuptools	False	do not install setuptools
--no-periodic-update	False	disable the periodic (once every 14 days) update of the embedded wheels

app-data ⇒ options specific to seeder app-data
--symlink-app-data	False	symlink the python packages from the app-data folder (requires seed pip>=19.3)

activators

core ⇒ options shared across all activators
--activators	comma separated list of activators supported	activators to generate - default is all supported; choice of: bash, batch, cshell, fish, nushell, powershell, python
--prompt		provides an alternative prompt prefix for this environment (value of . means name of the current working directory)