pixi-global

Install a package globally and add to path

$ pixi global install [package1 package2 ...]

$ pixi global remove [package1 package2 ...]

$ pixi global list

$ pixi global upgrade [package]

$ pixi global upgrade-all

pixi global subcommand [options] [arguments]

install package(s)
    Installs one or more packages globally, making their executables available in your PATH.

list
    Lists all currently installed global packages.

remove package(s)
    Removes one or more globally installed packages.

upgrade [package(s)]
    Upgrades one or more specified global packages, or all global packages if none are specified, to their latest compatible versions.

run command [args]
    Executes a command within the context of the global environment, allowing access to global packages.

bin
    Prints the path to the directory where global executables are linked. This directory should typically be added to your system's PATH environment variable.

pixi-global is a subcommand of pixi, a modern, cross-platform package manager and project environment tool developed by prefix.dev. While pixi primarily focuses on creating isolated, reproducible project environments defined by a pixi.toml file, the pixi-global command allows users to install and manage tools that should be available system-wide or across multiple projects. This is particularly useful for developer utilities, linters, formatters, and other command-line tools (e.g., uv, ruff, rye, pre-commit, biome, jq, delta) that you want to access from any directory without associating them with a specific project's dependencies.

It simplifies the process of setting up common development tools, ensuring they are consistently available and easily managed, leveraging pixi's efficient dependency resolution and environment management capabilities from ecosystems like conda-forge and PyPI.

pixi-global manages tools in a dedicated global environment. For these tools to be directly executable from your shell, the directory where pixi links global executables (output of pixi global bin) must be added to your system's PATH environment variable. While convenient, global installations can sometimes conflict with other system-wide or manually installed versions of the same tools if PATH is not ordered carefully. It is primarily designed for user-level global installations rather than system-wide provisioning.

To make globally installed pixi packages directly executable from any shell session, ensure that the output of pixi global bin is added to your system's PATH environment variable. This is usually done by adding a line like export PATH="/path/to/pixi/global/bin:$PATH" to your shell's configuration file (e.g., .bashrc, .zshrc, .profile).

Despite being "global," packages installed via pixi-global are managed within pixi's internal structure, providing a degree of isolation from system-level package managers and potential conflicts. This allows for specific tool versions to be installed without affecting system libraries.

pixi is a relatively new and rapidly evolving project, first released in late 2022 by prefix.dev. It was developed to address limitations of existing package managers by offering fast, reliable, and reproducible environments across various programming languages, leveraging the conda-forge ecosystem as well as PyPI for Python packages. The global subcommand was introduced as a core feature from early on, recognizing the need for developers to manage common CLI tools outside of specific project contexts, streamlining developer workstation setup and tool access.

pixi(1), conda(1), npm(1), pip(1), cargo(1)