How to prevent pip install without virtualenv?

Question

I really hate running something like make and then be surprised by pip installing a load of packages because I forgot to activate my virtualenv.

Is there any way to force pip to prompt / warn me that I'm not in some virtualenv?

Answer 1

Taken from http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/pip-virtualenv/

You need to set a environmental variable PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV

Best practice would be to place it in your autostart file (.bash_profile or similar)

export PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=true

To install the package globally, you can then run PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV="" pip ... or create a command gpip, also in the autostart file:

gpip() {
    PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV="" pip "$@"
}

Answer 2

Make a note that pip version 20.2.3 from Python 3.6 requires PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV=false rather than PIP_REQUIRE_VIRTUALENV="" to install global dependencies.