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01: Manage Environments

Concepts covered:

  • Environment lifecycle management
  • Environment switching and current environment tracking
  • Environment metadata and descriptions

Skills you will practice:

  • Listing and inspecting environments
  • Switching between environments
  • Removing environments when no longer needed

Understanding Hatch Environments

Hatch environments provide isolated workspaces for different MCP server collections. Each environment can have:

  • Its own package installations
  • Optional Python environment (via conda/mamba)
  • Independent configuration and state

Limitation Note: Multiple hatch instances modifying environments simultaneously may cause conflicts. Use one instance per workspace for reliability.

Step 1: List All Environments

View all available environments with their details:

hatch env list

Example output:

Environments:
  Name             Python        Packages
  ───────────────────────────────────────
  * my_python_env  3.11.9               0
    my_first_env   3.13.5               0

Key Details:

  • The * indicates the current active environment
  • Python column shows version number (or - if no Python environment)
  • Packages column shows count of installed packages

Step 2: Switch Between Environments

Change your current working environment:

hatch env use my_first_env

Expected output:

[SET] Current environment → 'my_first_env'

Verify the switch:

hatch env current

This command shows:

Current environment: my_first_env

Step 3: Remove Environments

Remove an environment you no longer need:

hatch env remove my_first_env

Expected output:

[REMOVE] Environment 'my_first_env'

Proceed? [y/N]: y
[REMOVED] Environment 'my_first_env'

Important: This removes both the Hatch environment and any associated Python environment. Make sure to back up any important data first.

Note: The command will prompt for confirmation unless you use --auto-approve.

Step 4: Understanding Environment Information

The env list command displays environments in a table format with:

  • Name column - Environment name with * marker for current environment
  • Python column - Python version (or - if no Python environment)
  • Packages column - Count of installed packages

For detailed information about a specific environment, including descriptions and full package details, use:

hatch env show <environment_name>

This will display:

  • Environment description and creation date
  • Python environment details (version, executable path, conda environment name)
  • Complete list of installed packages with versions and deployment status

Step 5: Managing Multiple Environments

You can maintain multiple environments for different projects:

# Project-specific environments
hatch env create project_a --description "Environment for Project A" --python-version 3.11
hatch env create project_b --description "Environment for Project B" --python-version 3.12

# Switch between them as needed
hatch env use project_a
# Work on project A...

hatch env use project_b
# Work on project B...

Exercise: Create three environments with different Python versions, switch between them, and observe how the current environment changes. Then remove one of the environments.

Solution 
# Create environments
hatch env create env_311 --python-version 3.11 --description "Python 3.11 environment"
hatch env create env_312 --python-version 3.12 --description "Python 3.12 environment"
hatch env create env_313 --python-version 3.13 --description "Python 3.13 environment"

# Switch between them
hatch env use env_311
hatch env current  # Should show env_311

hatch env use env_312
hatch env current  # Should show env_312

# List to see all three
hatch env list

# Remove one
hatch env remove env_313

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