pip list: Inspect Installed Packages

See exactly what is installed in this environment.

pip list prints installed packages and their versions. It is a quick way to confirm what a CI environment actually resolved to.

What it does

Lists every installed distribution and its version. Flags filter to outdated packages or change the output format for machine parsing.

Common usage

Terminal

pip list
pip list --outdated
pip list --format=freeze
pip list --format=json

Common CI gotcha: parsing the table

The default human-readable table has a header row and underlines, which break naive grep/awk parsing. Use --format=freeze or --format=json when a script consumes the output.

Terminal

# Brittle:
# pip list | grep requests   # also matches headers/extra rows

# Robust:
pip list --format=json

Options

Option	Does
-o, --outdated	Show only outdated packages
--format FORMAT	columns, freeze, or json
--user	List packages in the user site
--not-required	List packages no other depends on

Related guides

pip show: Inspect One Package’s MetadataHow pip show displays a package’s version, location, dependencies, and requirements - plus the non-zero exit… pip freeze: Pin Your Environment for CIHow pip freeze produces a pinned requirements.txt of the current environment, the gotchas with editable and V… pip check: Verify Dependency ConsistencyHow pip check detects broken or conflicting dependencies, what its non-zero exit means in CI, and how to read…