PIP-WHEEL(1)

💅 PIP-WHEEL(1) — the pip wheel glow-up (bestie edition)

okay so listen. this is pip-wheel from the pip manual, and yes i'm about to make wheel-building sound cute, because it is cute. buckle up 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

pip-wheel — literally the description of the pip wheel command. that's it. that's the name section. short and iconic. 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so what does it do?? it builds Wheel archives for your requirements and dependencies. that's the whole vibe. 🦋

so a Wheel is a built-package format, and the way it ate is that it doesn't recompile your software during every single install — like, imagine not recompiling every time, couldn't be your source builds 🫶. more deets here, the wheel docs: https://wheel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

and pip wheel uses the build system interface as described right here, no cap: https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/reference/build-system/

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⭐ USAGE ⭐

here's every way you can run it, verbatim, do not touch:

python -m pip wheel [options] <requirement specifier> ...
python -m pip wheel [options] -r <requirements file> ...
python -m pip wheel [options] [-e] <vcs project url> ...
python -m pip wheel [options] [-e] <local project path> ...
python -m pip wheel [options] <archive url/path> ...

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

bestie this is the part where we go line by line, no skipping, i promise. every flag, every env var, all of it. 💖

• -w, --wheel-dir <dir> — builds your wheels into <dir>, and the default is just the current working directory (very "i'm already here" of it). (environment variable: PIP_WHEEL_DIR)
• --no-binary <format_control> — nope, no binary packages for you. you can pass this multiple times and each time it adds to the existing value. it accepts either :all: to disable all binary packages, :none: to empty the set (notice the colons, iykyk), or one or more package names with commas between them (no colons). heads up though: some packages are tricky to compile and may fail to install when you use this option on them 😭. (environment variable: PIP_NO_BINARY)
• --only-binary <format_control> — the opposite energy: do not use source packages. multiple uses stack up, each adding to the existing value. accepts either :all: to disable all source packages, :none: to empty the set, or one or more package names with commas between them. packages without binary distributions will fail to install when this option is used on them 💀. (environment variable: PIP_ONLY_BINARY)
• --prefer-binary — prefer binary packages over source packages, even if the source packages are newer. newer isn't always better, ok?? (environment variable: PIP_PREFER_BINARY)
• --no-build-isolation — disables isolation when building a modern source distribution. ⚠️ build dependencies specified by PEP 518 must already be installed if you use this. (environment variable: PIP_NO_BUILD_ISOLATION)
• --use-pep517 — use PEP 517 for building source distributions (and use --no-use-pep517 to force legacy behaviour, if you're feeling retro 🙈). (environment variable: PIP_USE_PEP517)
• --check-build-dependencies — checks the build dependencies when PEP517 is used. like a little vibe check but for deps. ✅ (environment variable: PIP_CHECK_BUILD_DEPENDENCIES)
• -c, --constraint <file> — constrains versions using the given constraints file. this option can be used multiple times, stack 'em. (environment variable: PIP_CONSTRAINT)
• -e, --editable <path/url> — installs a project in editable mode (i.e. setuptools "develop mode") from a local project path or a VCS url. (environment variable: PIP_EDITABLE)
• -r, --requirement <file> — installs from the given requirements file. multiple uses? absolutely, go off. (environment variable: PIP_REQUIREMENT)
• --src <dir> — the directory to check out editable projects into. default in a virtualenv is <venv path>/src, and the default for global installs is <current dir>/src. (environment variable: PIP_SRC, PIP_SOURCE, PIP_SOURCE_DIR, PIP_SOURCE_DIRECTORY)
• --ignore-requires-python — ignores the Requires-Python information. rules are made to be ignored i guess 💀. (environment variable: PIP_IGNORE_REQUIRES_PYTHON)
• --no-deps — don't install package dependencies. lone wolf behaviour. 🐺 (environment variable: PIP_NO_DEPS, PIP_NO_DEPENDENCIES)
• --progress-bar <progress_bar> — specifies whether the progress bar should be used, one of [on, off, raw] (default: on). (environment variable: PIP_PROGRESS_BAR)
• --no-verify — don't verify if the built wheel is valid. living dangerously, iconic. (environment variable: PIP_NO_VERIFY)
• -C, --config-settings <settings> — configuration settings to be passed to the PEP 517 build backend. settings take the form KEY=VALUE. use multiple --config-settings options to pass multiple keys to the backend. (environment variable: PIP_CONFIG_SETTINGS)
• --build-option <options> — extra arguments to be supplied to 'setup.py bdist_wheel'. (environment variable: PIP_BUILD_OPTION)
• --global-option <options> — extra global options to be supplied to the setup.py call before the install or bdist_wheel command. (environment variable: PIP_GLOBAL_OPTION)
• --pre — include pre-release and development versions. by default, pip only finds stable versions (boring but safe 🎀). (environment variable: PIP_PRE)
• --require-hashes — require a hash to check each requirement against, for repeatable installs. this option is implied when any package in a requirements file has a --hash option. (environment variable: PIP_REQUIRE_HASHES)
• --group <[path:]group> — install a named dependency-group from a "pyproject.toml" file. if a path is given, the name of the file must be "pyproject.toml". defaults to using "pyproject.toml" in the current directory. (environment variable: PIP_GROUP)
• --no-clean — don't clean up build directories. leave the mess, it's part of the process ✨. (environment variable: PIP_NO_CLEAN)

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🦋 AUTHOR 🦋

pip developers — the main characters, honestly 👑

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🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

The pip developers — yes, same people, they hold the copyright too, slay 💜

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you're now a wheel-building expert, fr fr 🫶✨

sign-off moment: this gorgeous little page is from pip version 25.1, dated Jun 26, 2025 — go build something cute with it 🎀💖🧚