---
id: pip-chill
version: "1.0.5"
license: GPL-3.0-or-later
license_treatment: copyleft
maintenance: active
---

# pip-chill — Like `pip freeze` but lists only the packages that are not dependencies of installed packages.

License: copyleft · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 247.6K/mo

## What it is and what it does

pip-chill is a command-line tool that reads your current Python environment and outputs a requirements file containing only the packages you explicitly installed, omitting all their transitive dependencies. Unlike `pip freeze`, which lists every installed package regardless of whether you directly depend on it, pip-chill distinguishes between top-level packages and their dependencies, producing a cleaner and more maintainable requirements file.

The tool runs as a simple console command with optional flags to exclude version pinning, exclude pip-chill itself from the output, or include verbose dependency annotations. It has no runtime dependencies and supports Python 3.10 through 3.14, making it lightweight and easy to integrate into any Python workflow or CI/CD pipeline.

Use it for:

- Generate a clean requirements.txt for a new project by capturing only the packages you explicitly installed.
- Audit and reduce bloat in an existing requirements file by removing transitive dependencies that should be implicit.
- Maintain reproducible builds by pinning only direct dependencies and letting package managers resolve transitive versions.
- Compare what you actually need versus what pip freeze reports, to understand your project's true dependency surface.
- Automate requirements file generation in CI/CD pipelines where you want to track only top-level packages.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

pip-chill generates a minimal requirements file listing only the top-level packages you explicitly installed, filtering out their transitive dependencies.

Yes. pip-chill solves a real problem—pip freeze is too verbose for most use cases—with zero installation friction, no dependencies, active maintenance, and a copyleft license that poses no practical barrier to use as a development tool. Install it if you regularly manage Python requirements files and want a cleaner alternative to pip freeze.

## Install

pip install pip-chill
uv add pip-chill
poetry add pip-chill

## Installing pip-chill

Before you install: Low friction: pure Python wheel with no runtime dependencies. Actively maintained as of March 2026, with 595 repository stars and a stable release history since 2016.

License in practice: GPL-3.0-or-later (copyleft): you may use and modify pip-chill freely, but any derivative work or distribution must also be licensed under GPL-3.0 or later. This does not restrict use of the tool itself in your workflow.

Quickstart:

$ pip install pip-chill
$ pip-chill
# outputs top-level packages with versions

$ pip-chill --no-version
# outputs top-level packages without versions

Requires Python 3.10 or later.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the tool correctly handles all edge cases in dependency graph resolution (e.g., circular or conditional dependencies).
- Performance characteristics with very large installed environments (thousands of packages).

## Package facts

- License: GPL-3.0-or-later (copyleft)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 247.6K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

minimal requirements file, pip freeze without dependencies, top-level packages only, clean requirements generation, dependency-free requirements list, pip requirements cleanup, exclude transitive dependencies, requirements-management, cli-tool

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/pip-chill) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/pip-chill/)