Installing from PyPI

Spec Kit is published to PyPI as specify-cli, maintained by the Spec Kit maintainers. Installing from PyPI is the second supported install route alongside installing from the GitHub source. Use whichever fits your workflow — both provide the same specify CLI.

[!NOTE] The PyPI release version tracks the GitHub release tags (for example, PyPI 0.12.11 corresponds to the v0.12.11 tag). specify version is only a local version/runtime sanity check — it reports the installed version but not where the specify executable came from, so it cannot distinguish a PyPI install from a Git install. To confirm the install source, inspect the source metadata your package manager records: pipx list --json reports the exact install specification for each tool, and for uv/pip installs you can check the package's PEP 610 direct_url.json inside its *.dist-info directory (a Git or URL install records the repository/archive URL there, while a plain PyPI index install does not create that file). Note that pip show specify-cli only prints package metadata and will not see uv/pipx-managed environments from the host interpreter.

Install Specify CLI

Use whichever Python tool you already have:

bash

# Using uv (recommended)
uv tool install specify-cli

# Or using pipx
pipx install specify-cli

# Or using pip
pip install specify-cli

Install a specific release

Pin an exact version for reproducible installs (check PyPI or Releases for available versions):

bash

# Using uv
uv tool install specify-cli==0.12.11

# Or using pipx
pipx install specify-cli==0.12.11

# Or using pip
pip install specify-cli==0.12.11

Install from a custom or private package index

Some environments (corporate networks, mirrors, proxies, or artifact feeds) require installing specify-cli from a package index other than the default public PyPI. Each Python tool exposes a way to point at a different index — configure it before running the install commands above. Substitute your own index URL for the placeholder shown here.

bash

# uv — via environment variable (applies to the whole command)
UV_DEFAULT_INDEX=https://your-index.example.com/pypi/simple/ uv tool install specify-cli

# uv — via flag
uv tool install --default-index https://your-index.example.com/pypi/simple/ specify-cli

# pipx — pass a pip argument through
pipx install specify-cli --index-url https://your-index.example.com/pypi/simple/

# pip
pip install specify-cli --index-url https://your-index.example.com/pypi/simple/

[!NOTE] The same index configuration applies to pinned installs, upgrades (--force/--upgrade), and one-time usage — set the environment variable or flag on those commands too. If your index requires authentication, follow your tool's documentation and prefer credential environment variables, keyring, or netrc; do not embed secrets in command-line URLs because they can leak through shell history, process listings, or logs. Avoid committing secrets. For fully offline installs, see the air-gapped installation guide.

Verify

bash

specify version

Initialize a project

bash

specify init <PROJECT_NAME> --integration copilot

Upgrade

Upgrade by reinstalling the package through the same tool you used for the original install. If you originally pinned a version, note that uv tool upgrade preserves that pin; to move to the newest PyPI release, use an unpinned install command so you do not keep the existing version pin:

bash

# Using uv
uv tool install --force specify-cli

# Or using pipx
pipx install --force specify-cli

# Or using pip
pip install --upgrade specify-cli

[!NOTE] specify self upgrade currently rebuilds uv tool and pipx installs from the GitHub source release URL rather than preserving a PyPI-based installation. If you want to stay on the PyPI route, use the package-manager commands above. A plain pip install specify-cli is treated as an unmanaged install — upgrade it with pip install --upgrade specify-cli. See the Upgrade Guide for details.

Uninstall

bash

# Using uv
uv tool uninstall specify-cli

# Or using pipx
pipx uninstall specify-cli

# Or using pip
pip uninstall specify-cli

Next steps

Head to the Quick Start to initialize your first project.