How to migrate from Pipenv to uv

by Tim Hopper

uv Packaging

Pipenv combines pip and virtualenv into a single tool. uv covers the same ground and adds Python version management, a standards-compliant pyproject.toml-based workflow, and significantly faster dependency resolution.

Migrating replaces the Pipfile and Pipfile.lock with pyproject.toml and uv.lock, and swaps pipenv commands for their uv equivalents.

Automated migration

The migrate-to-uv tool automates the conversion.

1. Run the migration tool

$ uvx migrate-to-uv

The tool reads your Pipfile and:

Creates a pyproject.toml with [project] metadata and [dependency-groups]
Translates [packages] to dependencies and [dev-packages] to the dev dependency group
Generates a uv.lock file from the resolved dependencies in Pipfile.lock
Removes Pipfile and Pipfile.lock

2. Verify the result

$ uv sync
$ uv run pytest

Manual migration

If the automated tool doesn’t cover your setup, map Pipfile sections to pyproject.toml by hand.

A typical Pipfile:

Pipfile

[[source]]
url = "https://pypi.org/simple"
verify_ssl = true
name = "pypi"

[packages]
requests = ">=2.28"
click = ">=8.0"

[dev-packages]
pytest = ">=7.0"
ruff = "*"

[requires]
python_version = "3.11"

Becomes:

pyproject.toml

[project]
name = "my-project"
version = "0.1.0"
requires-python = ">=3.11"
dependencies = [
    "requests>=2.28",
    "click>=8.0",
]

[dependency-groups]
dev = [
    "pytest>=7.0",
    "ruff",
]

[build-system]
requires = ["hatchling"]
build-backend = "hatchling.build"

Key translations:

Pipfile	pyproject.toml
`[packages]`	`[project] dependencies`
`[dev-packages]`	`[dependency-groups] dev`
`[requires] python_version`	`[project] requires-python`
`[source]` (non-default index)	`[[tool.uv.index]]`
`"*"` (any version)	omit the version constraint

After creating pyproject.toml, generate the lockfile:

$ uv lock
$ uv sync

Then delete Pipfile and Pipfile.lock.

Command equivalents

Pipenv	uv
`pipenv install`	`uv sync`
`pipenv install requests`	`uv add requests`
`pipenv install --dev pytest`	`uv add --dev pytest`
`pipenv uninstall requests`	`uv remove requests`
`pipenv run python script.py`	`uv run python script.py`
`pipenv run pytest`	`uv run pytest`
`pipenv shell`	`source .venv/bin/activate`
`pipenv lock`	`uv lock`
`pipenv sync`	`uv sync`
`pipenv update`	`uv lock --upgrade`
`pipenv update requests`	`uv lock --upgrade-package requests`
`pipenv graph`	`uv tree`

Tip

pipenv shell spawns a subshell. uv keeps the virtual environment in .venv at the project root. Activate it with source .venv/bin/activate (macOS/Linux) or .venv\Scripts\activate (Windows), or prefix commands with uv run instead of activating.

Learn More

Last updated on April 13, 2026

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