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Native Pixi support on YouTrack

There is a tracking issue for native Pixi support in PyCharm, PY-79041. Feel free to upvote it if it is relevant to you. For CLion, you can track CPP-42761.

Pycharm#

You can use PyCharm with Pixi environments by using the conda shim provided by the pixi-pycharm package.

To get started, add pixi-pycharm to your Pixi workspace.

pixi add pixi-pycharm

This will ensure that the conda shim is installed in your workspace's environment.

Having pixi-pycharm installed, you can now configure PyCharm to use your Pixi environments. Go to the Add Python Interpreter dialog (bottom right corner of the PyCharm window) and select Conda Environment. Set Conda Executable to the full path of the conda file (on Windows: conda.bat) which is located in .pixi/envs/default/libexec. You can get the path using the following command:

pixi run 'echo $CONDA_PREFIX/libexec/conda'

pixi run 'echo $CONDA_PREFIX\\libexec\\conda.bat'

This is an executable that tricks PyCharm into thinking it's the proper conda executable. Under the hood it redirects all calls to the corresponding pixi equivalent.

Use the conda shim from this Pixi workspace

Please make sure that this is the conda shim from this Pixi workspace and not another one. If you use multiple Pixi projects, you might have to adjust the path accordingly as PyCharm remembers the path to the conda executable.

Add Python Interpreter Add Python Interpreter

Having selected the environment, PyCharm will now use the Python interpreter from your Pixi environment.

PyCharm should now be able to show you the installed packages as well.

PyCharm package list PyCharm package list

You can now run your programs and tests as usual.

PyCharm run tests PyCharm run tests

Mark .pixi as excluded

In order for PyCharm to not get confused about the .pixi directory, please mark it as excluded.

Mark Directory as excluded 1 Mark Directory as excluded 1 Mark Directory as excluded 2 Mark Directory as excluded 2

Also, when using a remote interpreter, you should exclude the .pixi directory on the remote machine. Instead, you should run pixi install on the remote machine and select the conda shim from there. Deployment exclude from remote machine Deployment exclude from remote machine

Multiple environments#

If your workspace uses multiple environments to tests different Python versions or dependencies, you can add multiple environments to PyCharm by specifying Use existing environment in the Add Python Interpreter dialog.

Multiple Pixi environments Multiple Pixi environments

You can then specify the corresponding environment in the bottom right corner of the PyCharm window.

Specify environment Specify environment

Multiple Pixi projects#

When using multiple Pixi projects, remember to select the correct Conda Executable for each workspace as mentioned above. It also might come up that you have multiple environments with the same name.

Multiple default environments Multiple default environments

It is recommended to rename the environments to something unique.

Debugging#

Logs are written to ~/.cache/pixi-pycharm.log. You can use them to debug problems. Please attach the logs when filing a bug report.

Install as an optional dependency#

In some cases, you might only want to install pixi-pycharm on your local dev-machines but not in production. To achieve this, we can use multiple environments.

[workspace]
name = "multi-env"
version = "0.1.0"
requires-python = ">=3.12"
dependencies = ["numpy"]

[tool.pixi.workspace]
channels = ["conda-forge"]
platforms = ["linux-64"]

[tool.pixi.feature.lint.dependencies]
ruff =  "*"

[tool.pixi.feature.dev.dependencies]
pixi-pycharm = "*"

[tool.pixi.environments]
# The production environment is the default feature set.
# Adding a solve group to make sure the same versions are used in the `default` and `prod` environments.
prod = { solve-group = "main" }

# Setup the default environment to include the dev features.
# By using `default` instead of `dev` you'll not have to specify the `--environment` flag when running `pixi run`.
default = { features = ["dev"], solve-group = "main" }

# The lint environment doesn't need the default feature set but only the `lint` feature
# and thus can also be excluded from the solve group.
lint = { features = ["lint"], no-default-feature = true }

Now you as a user can run pixi shell, which will start the default environment. In production, you then just run pixi run -e prod COMMAND, and the minimal prod environment is installed.

Direnv#

In order to use Direnv with Jetbrains products you first have to install the Direnv plugin. Then follow the instructions in our Direnv doc page. Now your Jetbrains IDE will be run within the selected Pixi environment.