Activate

A lightweight C command-line tool to discover and activate Python virtual environments.

activate scans a directory tree, identifies possible Python environments, and helps the user activate the selected environment from the current shell.

Features

• Recursively scans directories looking for Python virtual environments
• Detects environments using a simple heuristic:
  • presence of a bin/ directory
  • presence of bin/activate
  • presence of a Python executable
• Supports multiple environments in the same project tree
• Automatically activates a single detected environment
• Interactive selection when multiple environments are found
• Lightweight C implementation with no external dependencies

Important info

• Current version supprorts only linux/MacOS
• The project is currently under development so bugs are expected

Project structure

activate
├── include
│   ├── activate.h
│   ├── dir_list.h
│   ├── io.h
│   └── scan.h
│
├── src
│   ├── main.c
│   ├── activate.c
│   ├── dir_list.c
│   ├── scan.c
│   └── io.c
│
├── scripts
│   └── activate
│
├── Makefile
└── README.md

Building

Requirements:

• GCC or another C compiler
• POSIX-compatible system

Build:

make

The generated binary is:

activate-cli

Installation

Install for the current user:

make install PREFIX=$HOME/.local

This installs:

~/.local/bin/activate-cli
~/.local/bin/activate

Make sure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Add this 3 lines in the ~/.bashrc and you are ready to go

activate() {
    source "$HOME/.local/bin/activate" "$@"
}

Usage

Scan current directory

activate

The current directory is used as the search root.

Scan a specific directory

activate /path/to/project

Example:

project/
├── env/
│   └── bin/
│       ├── activate
│       └── python
│
└── experiments/
    └── .venv/
        └── bin/
            ├── activate
            └── python

The tool detects both environments.

Multiple environments

When multiple environments are found:

Multiple environments found:

1) /home/user/project/env/bin/activate
2) /home/user/project/experiments/.venv/bin/activate

Select environment:

The selected environment is sourced into the current shell.

Environment detection

Currently an environment is considered valid if:

environment/
└── bin/
    ├── activate
    └── python

Future improvements

• Better error handling
• Cache discovered environments
• Environment names instead of full paths
• Shell completion
• Support for zsh/fish
• Package distribution