Install denver

There are several ways to install denver. Pick whichever fits your project.

All versions, changelogs and prebuilt binaries are on the GitHub releases page.

Run from source (no install)

The fastest way to try denver, and the one with nothing to install: clone the repository and run the script directly.

[!NOTE] python3 (version >=3.9) is required to be installed. denver.toml configs additionally need >=3.11 (tomllib is stdlib only from there) – denver.yml/denver.yaml, denver’s default format, works on the full >=3.9 range.

git clone https://github.com/thorsten-klein/denver.git

./denver/src/denver.py --version

That’s it — src/denver.py is the denver command, with no packaging step in between. Every example in this documentation that says denver run <env> ... works exactly the same way as ./denver/src/denver.py run <env> .... For easier usage you may want to set alias denver=$PWD/src/denver.py.

From PyPI

denver is also deployed as pure-Python package to PyPi. Install it with pip:

pip install denver-tool

or straight from GitHub:

pip install git+https://github.com/thorsten-klein/denver.git@develop

If you use uv instead of pip:

[!NOTE] Please refer to official uv documentation how to install uv. For example on Linux you can install via curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

uv tool install denver-tool

or straight from GitHub:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/thorsten-klein/denver.git@develop

Any of those commands installs the denver command.

If you want to enforce a specific python and denver version, you can use an alias which runs uvx

alias denver="uvx --python 3.14 denver-tool==x.y.z"

Prebuilt binary

On a machine with no Python at all, or if you are stuck on Python older than 3.9, use the standalone executable attached to every release instead. It bundles denver, its providers and a Python interpreter into one executable. (Stuck between 3.9 and 3.11, specifically? A regular install still works fine as long as your configs are denver.yml/denver.yaml – only denver.toml needs 3.11, see Configuration.)

Find the download link for the latest release in your browser or download via curl:

ASSET=$(curl -sSL https://api.github.com/repos/thorsten-klein/denver/releases/latest | grep -o 'https://[^"]*\.tar\.xz')

Download and unpack it:

curl -sSL "$ASSET" | tar -xJf -

Run it:

./denver --version

Covers x86_64 Linux with glibc 2.28 or newer (Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 10+, Fedora 29+, RHEL/Alma/Rocky 8+, Arch, Mint 20+); musl-based distros such as Alpine are not covered yet. Build it yourself with scripts/create-python-exe.sh or uv run poe pyinstaller).

Editable install

If you want to install denver and hack on source code yourself, you can install it in python’s editable mode:

First clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/thorsten-klein/denver.git

Then install in editable mode, e.g. via pip

pip install -e ./denver

Vendor with git-nested

To vendor denver straight into your own monorepo instead of depending on it as an installed package, add it via git-nested:

git-nested clone https://github.com/thorsten-klein/denver.git

Nothing needs installing here either — same idea as “Run from source”: just vendored into your own repository instead of cloned standalone.

[!NOTE] Next: denver in 5 minutes — run a real environment end to end. It starts with the handful of host tools you need first, which depends on which providers the environment uses.