JSON output

Most pipx commands accept --output json to print a single machine-readable result envelope on stdout instead of human-readable text. Selecting JSON suppresses the normal progress messages, so the envelope is the only thing on stdout.

Envelope

The envelope is a JSON object with these keys (serialized with sorted keys):

Key	Value
pipx_result_version	Envelope schema version, currently "1".
command	The command tokens as a list, for example ["install"] or ["cache", "dir"].
status	"success" when there are no errors, "partial" when the run both succeeded somewhere and recorded errors, "error" otherwise.
exit_code	The integer process exit code (see Exit codes).
data	Command-specific payload object. Its fields depend on the command.
errors	List of error objects. Each has code, message, and the optional identity fields environment and package.

{
  "pipx_result_version": "1",
  "command": ["install"],
  "status": "success",
  "exit_code": 0,
  "data": {},
  "errors": []
}

A dispatch failure on a JSON-enabled command still speaks the envelope: it prints a status of "error" with a single error whose code is pipx_error, and exits 1.

Supported commands

--output json is available on: install, inject, uninject, expose, unexpose, pin, unpin, upgrade, upgrade-all, upgrade-shared, uninstall, uninstall-all, reinstall, reinstall-all, reset, health, repair, manifest lock, manifest sync, interpreter list, interpreter prune, interpreter upgrade, cache dir, and cache purge.

It is not available on install-all, run, exec, runpip, ensurepath, environment, completions, or help.

list is different

pipx list --output json does not emit the result envelope. It prints the installed-package snapshot that install-all reads back: an object with pipx_spec_version and a venvs map of environment name to its metadata (see On-disk metadata). pipx list --json is a legacy alias for the same snapshot.

$ pipx list --output json > pipx.json
$ pipx install-all pipx.json

--json is a legacy alias only on list; every other command uses --output json.