python-venv-requests

---
name: python-venv-requests
description: Creates an isolated Python virtual environment for a project, installs a pinned version of requests in it and records the dependencies in requirements.txt. Use when the user wants to "create a venv", "isolate a Python project's dependencies", "install requests cleanly" or "generate a requirements.txt".
---

# Python virtual environment + pinned requests

> Verification: 6/6 steps executed successfully on 2026-11-08 (Linux, Python 3.13) in a throwaway folder.
> Not verified: Windows (different activation command, see Variants).

At the end: an isolated `.venv/` folder, `requests` 2.32.3 installed in it, and a `requirements.txt` that recreates the environment identically.

## Prerequisites
- Python 3 available as `python3` [t=0:08]
- Terminal open at the project root (`~/project` in the video) [t=0:05]

## Steps

### 1. Create the virtual environment
```bash
python3 -m venv .venv
```
✔ Success: no error message, a `.venv/` folder exists. [t=0:08]

### 2. Activate it
```bash
source .venv/bin/activate
```
✔ Success: the prompt starts with `(.venv)`. [t=0:19]

### 3. Install a pinned version of requests
```bash
pip install requests==2.32.3
```
The exact version comes from the screen: the narration says "request, version 2.32", the screen shows `requests==2.32.3` [t=0:23].
✔ Success: the last line contains `Successfully installed … requests-2.32.3`, with the certifi, charset-normalizer, idna, urllib3 dependencies. [t=0:23]

### 4. Check the install
```bash
python -c "import requests; print(requests.__version__)"
```
✔ Success: prints `2.32.3`. [t=0:31]

### 5. Freeze the dependencies
```bash
pip freeze > requirements.txt
```
[t=0:36]

### 6. Check the file
```bash
grep requests requirements.txt
```
✔ Success: prints `requests==2.32.3`. [t=0:45]

## Variants
- ➕ added: on Windows (PowerShell), activation is `.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1` (source: https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html).
- ➕ added: recreate the environment elsewhere → `python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate && pip install -r requirements.txt` (same source).
- Another requests version: replace `2.32.3` in step 3; the video only covers this one.

## Troubleshooting
- `(.venv)` does not appear → step 2 was run with `sh` instead of `bash`/`zsh`: use `. .venv/bin/activate`. (➕ added, same source)
- ➕ added: add `.venv/` to `.gitignore` so the environment is not versioned.

## Source
- Video: "Python: virtual environment" — test video generated by `tests/make_test_video.py`
- Transcript: provided subtitles (.srt)
- Extracted on 2026-11-08 with video-to-skill