🐍 pyfinder - Where are my py?

pyfinder is a cross-platform command-line tool that finds all Python interpreters and package managers installed on your system. It searches across PATH, pyenv, conda, and the Windows Registry—then presents the results in a clear, colorful overview.

✨ Features

• 🔍 Comprehensive Discovery – Finds Python interpreters from:
  • PATH (common names like python3, python3.11, pypy3, etc.)
  • The currently running interpreter (sys.executable)
  • pyenv installations
  • conda environments
  • Windows Registry (PEP 514)
• 📦 Package Managers – Detects package managers including pip, conda, mamba, poetry, pdm, uv, pipenv, and more.
• 🌈 Beautiful Output – Color-coded terminal output with icons, status indicators, and neatly formatted paths.
• 📋 JSON Export – Option to output machine-readable JSON (great for scripts or CI/CD).
• 🪟 Windows Friendly – Uses py launcher detection, winreg, and NO_COLOR support.
• ⚡ Zero Dependencies – Pure Python 3 standard library. No pip install needed.

📦 Installation

Just download the script—no dependencies required.

git clone https://github.com/0xA672/pyfinder.git
cd pyfinder
python pyfinder.py

Or copy it directly:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xA672/pyfinder/main/pyfinder.py
python pyfinder.py

🚀 Usage

python pyfinder.py [OPTIONS]

Options

Flag	Description
-i, --interpreters-only	Show only Python interpreters
-p, --packages-only	Show only package managers
-j, --json	Output in JSON format
--no-color	Disable colored output

Examples

1. Default – show everything

$ python pyfinder.py

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  System Info
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  OS       Linux 5.15.0-91-generic (x86_64)
  Python   3.11.6
  Prefix   /usr

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Python Interpreters
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  1 ● python3.11  Python 3.11.6
     ↳ /usr/bin/python3.11
     src: sys.executable
  2 ● python3     Python 3.10.12
     ↳ /usr/bin/python3
     src: PATH
  3 ● pyenv:3.9.18  Python 3.9.18
     ↳ /home/user/.pyenv/versions/3.9.18/bin/python
     src: pyenv
  ...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Package Managers
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  1 ● pip  23.2.1
     ↳ /usr/bin/pip
     src: PATH
  2 ● poetry  Poetry (version 1.6.1)
     ↳ /home/user/.local/bin/poetry
     src: PATH
  ...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  Interpreters: 4  ·  Package Managers: 3  ·  Unreachable: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2. Only interpreters, JSON output

$ python pyfinder.py -i -j

3. Use in a script

import subprocess, json
result = subprocess.run(["python", "pyfinder.py", "-j"], capture_output=True, text=True)
data = json.loads(result.stdout)
for interpreter in data["interpreters"]:
    print(interpreter["path"])

📊 JSON Schema

{
  "platform": {
    "system": "Linux",
    "release": "5.15.0-91-generic",
    "machine": "x86_64",
    "python_version": "3.11.6"
  },
  "interpreters": [
    {
      "name": "python3.11",
      "path": "/usr/bin/python3.11",
      "version": "Python 3.11.6",
      "source": "sys.executable",
      "accessible": true
    }
  ],
  "package_managers": [
    {
      "name": "pip",
      "path": "/usr/bin/pip",
      "version": "23.2.1",
      "source": "PATH",
      "accessible": true
    }
  ]
}

🧩 How It Works

pyfinder scans your system using multiple strategies:

1. PATH scanning – Looks for executables named python3, python, pip, etc.
2. Current process – Uses sys.executable.
3. pyenv – Lists all versions under $PYENV_ROOT/versions (or ~/.pyenv).
4. conda – Runs conda env list and checks each environment’s bin/python.
5. Windows Registry – Reads PEP 514 keys to find Python installations.
6. py launcher (Windows only) – Detects the Python launcher and py -m pip.

Each found executable is verified for accessibility (os.X_OK) and its version is extracted.

🛠️ Requirements

• Python 3.6+ (uses f-strings, subprocess.run, dataclasses)
• No external packages required
• Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

• Test on different operating systems and report issues
• Add support for additional package managers
• Improve error handling or performance
• Submit PRs with enhancements

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Inspired by pythonfinder and the need for a lightweight, dependency‑free Python discovery tool.

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pyfinder – never lose track of your Python installations again.