There are a few different ways to request a specific version of Python when using uv.
🔖 I like to use Python Documentation by Version to list the available version. Building on the last post about getting EOL info via the CLI, you could also use:
uv tool run --python 3.11.6 --from norwegianblue eol python
That will print the full version string for each minor release. (Depending on what exactly you’re trying to do, that might not be helpful.)
The --python 3.11.6 tells uv to use Python 3.11.6.
✅ Check the Python version
You can specify the Python version and check the Python version all in one go:
# uv run --python 3.12 python -V Python 3.12.8
Let’s say you wanted to get the path to that Python 3.12.8 executable. Enter uv python find.
# uv python find 3.12
📝 If you have used a non-default location for UV_PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR, you’ll need to take that into account.
If you want to check with version of Python and get a path to the executable that uv would use by default, you can use uv python find 3.12.
📍 Pinning the version in .python-version
The presence of a .python-version file in the working directory (and any parent directories) can be used to pin a particular Python version. There is even a uv python pin command that can be used to generate said .python-version file. The docs note that the --python works with most uv commands. It looks like uv python pin is one of the commands where --python is not accepted.
# uv python pin 3.12 Pinned `.python-version` to `3.12` # cat .python-version 3.12
The --python flag takes precedence over .python-version, as I would expect.
🌞