[Feature request] Avoiding .venv in production

[pkucmus]

Related to: #7341

When making a Docker image with my application I would like to achieve the equivalent of Poetry's POETRY_VIRTUALENVS_CREATE=false to use the only Python interpreter in the container. This would reduce need for consideration over the .venv directory being mixed in the host and in the container (as the container would not have one)

[jond01]

Don't the following satisfy your request:

• --system flag:
  https://docs.astral.sh/uv/reference/settings/#pip_system
• UV_SYSTEM_PYTHON=true environment variable:
  https://docs.astral.sh/uv/configuration/environment/

?

[zanieb]

Please see https://docs.astral.sh/uv/concepts/projects/#configuring-the-project-environment-path and https://docs.astral.sh/uv/guides/integration/docker/#using-the-environment

[zanieb]

This was addressed in #6834

[pkucmus]

Sorry, I saw this but did not connect the dots that it's about that problem, for anyone else, #6834 (comment) this is a perfect solution.

[zanieb]

No problem we can work on improving it. Is there anything in the docs that would be helpful to change?

[pkucmus]

Don't the following satisfy your request:

* `--system` flag:
  [docs.astral.sh/uv/reference/settings#pip_system](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/reference/settings/#pip_system)

* `UV_SYSTEM_PYTHON=true` environment variable:
  [docs.astral.sh/uv/configuration/environment](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/configuration/environment/)

?

Don't see the --system flag in 0.4.9 but I do see --python-preference=only-system
but then when I set ENV UV_PYTHON_PREFERENCE=only-system uv sync --frozen --no-install-project --no-dev still creates .venv
uv --system sync errors out error: unexpected argument '--system' found

[pkucmus]

@zanieb I'm currently looking into moving from pyenv, pipx, Poetry to uv and set uv as a company standard, I will explore more and can share my journey and/or feedback here, if that "Poetry user's journey" point of view would be at all helpful to you and your team working on uv.