Virtual Environments

Virtual environments are isolated Python environments that keep your project's dependencies separate from other projects and your system Python.

Why Use Virtual Environments?

Imagine two AI projects:

• Project A needs openai==1.0.0
• Project B needs openai==1.5.0

Without virtual environments, installing one would break the other. Virtual environments solve this by creating isolated spaces for each project.

Creating a Virtual Environment

# Navigate to your project folder
cd my-ai-project

# Create a virtual environment named 'venv'
python3 -m venv venv

This creates a venv folder containing:

• A copy of the Python interpreter
• A place for installed packages
• Activation scripts

Activating the Environment

macOS/Linux

source venv/bin/activate

Windows (Command Prompt)

venv\Scripts\activate.bat

Windows (PowerShell)

venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

When activated, you'll see (venv) at the start of your terminal prompt.

Deactivating

When you're done working:

deactivate

Best Practices

Practice	Reason
One venv per project	Prevents dependency conflicts
Name it venv or .venv	Standard convention, easy to gitignore
Don't commit venv to git	It's large and system-specific
Recreate from requirements.txt	Share dependencies, not the environment

Next, we'll learn how to manage packages with pip. :::