globally-install-cli-tool-with-uv.md

Globally Install CLI Tool With UV

When I add a tool like ruff to my project with uv:

❯ uv add --dev ruff

Then I can run that tool within that project using uv:

❯ uv run ruff format

However if I want to be able to run that tool via its binary directly, especially outside the context of that project, then I need to instead install it globally.

This can be done with uv using the tool install subcommand:

❯ uv tool install ruff
Resolved 1 package in 192ms
Installed 1 package in 4ms
 + ruff==0.15.20
Installed 1 executable: ruff

Now I can run ruff directly from anywhere:

❯ ruff config line-length
The line length to use when enforcing long-lines violations (like `E501`)
and at which `isort` and the formatter prefers to wrap lines.

...

The ruff binary gets symlinked into my .local/bin/ directory which is coming from the uv tool directory.

❯ which ruff
/Users/lastword/.local/bin/ruff

❯ readlink -n /Users/lastword/.local/bin/ruff
/Users/lastword/.local/share/uv/tools/ruff/bin/ruff

See uv tool install --help for more details.