pipenv/docs/shell.md

Environment and Shell Configuration

Automatic Loading of .env

If a .env file is present in your project, $ pipenv shell and $ pipenv run will automatically load it, for you:

$ cat .env
HELLO=WORLD⏎

$ pipenv run python
Loading .env environment variables...
Python 2.7.13 (default, Jul 18 2017, 09:17:00)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 8.1.0 (clang-802.0.42)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.environ['HELLO']
'WORLD'

Variable expansion is available in .env files using ${VARNAME} syntax:

$ cat .env
CONFIG_PATH=${HOME}/.config/foo

$ pipenv run python
Loading .env environment variables...
Python 3.7.6 (default, Dec 19 2019, 22:52:49)
[GCC 9.2.1 20190827 (Red Hat 9.2.1-1)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.environ['CONFIG_PATH']
'/home/kennethreitz/.config/foo'

This is very useful for keeping production credentials out of your codebase. We do not recommend committing .env files into source control!

If your .env file is located in a different path or has a different name you may set the PIPENV_DOTENV_LOCATION environment variable:

$ PIPENV_DOTENV_LOCATION=/path/to/.env pipenv shell

To prevent pipenv from loading the .env file, set the PIPENV_DONT_LOAD_ENV environment variable:

$ PIPENV_DONT_LOAD_ENV=1 pipenv shell

See theskumar/python-dotenv for more information on .env files.

Shell Completion

To enable completion in fish, add this to your configuration:

eval (env _PIPENV_COMPLETE=fish_source pipenv)

Alternatively, with zsh, add this to your configuration:

eval "$(_PIPENV_COMPLETE=zsh_source pipenv)"

Alternatively, with bash, add this to your configuration:

eval "$(_PIPENV_COMPLETE=bash_source pipenv)"

Shell completions are now enabled!

Shell Notes (stale)

Shells are typically misconfigured for subshell use, so $ pipenv shell --fancy may produce unexpected results. If this is the case, try $ pipenv shell, which uses "compatibility mode", and will attempt to spawn a subshell despite misconfiguration.

A proper shell configuration only sets environment variables like PATH during a login session, not during every subshell spawn (as they are typically configured to do). In fish, this looks like this:

if status --is-login
    set -gx PATH /usr/local/bin $PATH
end

You should do this for your shell too, in your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc or wherever appropriate.

The shell launched in interactive mode. This means that if your shell reads its configuration from a specific file for interactive mode (e.g. bash by default looks for a ~/.bashrc configuration file for interactive mode), then you'll need to modify (or create) this file.