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Installation

To ensure a clean and isolated environment, we recommend installing instant-python using a virtual environment. At your own risk, you can install it at your system Python installation, but this is not recommended. Below are the preferred installation methods.

Supported Python Versions

Instant Python tries to support the latest Python versions, we officially support from Python 3.10 to 3.13. Older versions of Python may work, but they are not guaranteed to be compatible.

Installation Methods

The recommended way to install instant-python is via the install script. It downloads a self-contained ipy binary with Python bundled in, so no local Python installation is required to install or run it.

macOS / Linux

curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dimanu-py/instant-python/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

By default the binary is installed to ~/.local/bin. You can override this with the IPY_BIN_DIR environment variable:

IPY_BIN_DIR="$HOME/bin" curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dimanu-py/instant-python/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Windows

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dimanu-py/instant-python/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex"

This adds %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin to your user PATH automatically; restart your terminal afterwards so it picks up the change. You can override the install directory with the IPY_BIN_DIR environment variable.

Supported platforms

The install script currently provides prebuilt binaries for macOS (Apple Silicon), Linux (x86_64 and arm64), and Windows (x86_64). On other platforms (Intel Mac, Windows on ARM), use one of the alternative methods below.

Other installation methods

If your platform isn't covered by the install script, or you prefer to manage instant-python as a regular Python package, you can install it with uv, pipx, or pip instead.

Using uv

If you already use uv to manage Python tools, you can install instant-python with uv tool install, which installs it in an isolated environment just like pipx.

uv tool install instant-python

Using pipx

pipx installs Python applications in isolated environments, ensuring that they do not interfere with other Python applications.

pipx install instant-python

If you do not have pipx installed, you can install it using pip.

pip install --user pipx

Using pyenv

If you already manage your Python versions using a tool like Pyenv, you can install instant-python using pip with pyenv's global Python version.

pip install instant-python

A guide to install and configure pyenv can be found here

Next steps

Now that you have installed instant-python you can advance to the first steps section to learn the basic features of instant-python and create your first project.