Create a requirements.txt file

Connect Cloud needs a dependency file to know which Python packages to include in a deployment. Any content that has Python code needs a requirements.txt file included in the GitHub repository.

Available methods

Option 1: Write the file yourself

If you know which packages your app or document needs, create a file named requirements.txt and list each package on its own line.

requirements.txt

faicons
shiny
shinywidgets
plotly
pandas
ridgeplot

Then install the packages in your environment:

Terminal

pip install -r requirements.txt

Option 2: Use pip freeze

If your app or document already works on your computer, you can save a snapshot of the packages installed in your environment with pip freeze.

Terminal

pip freeze > requirements.txt

Option 3: Use uv

If you use uv, there are two ways to create the file.

To save a snapshot of the packages installed in your environment, which is similar to pip freeze, run:

Terminal

uv pip freeze > requirements.txt

To export the packages from a uv project, run this command from the folder that contains your pyproject.toml and uv.lock files:

Terminal

uv export --format requirements-txt --no-hashes --no-emit-project -o requirements.txt

The --no-hashes and --no-emit-project options keep the file to a plain list of packages.

Note

If you deploy with the rsconnect-python command line, you can use a uv.lock or pyproject.toml file directly by naming it with --requirements-file. The other deployment methods need a requirements.txt file.

File location

The requirements.txt file can be in the root folder of the repository or in the folder that contains your primary file.