Question: I installed pyenv-virtualenv using Linuxbrew (Homebrew 2.2.5) on my Ubuntu 16.04 VPS. The pyenv version is: 1.2.16. Now when I do a test like this: pyenv install 3.8.1 pyenv virtualenv 3.8.1 test cd /.pyenv/versions/3.8.1/envs/test pyenv local 3.8.1  Then entering / leaving the /.pyenv/versions/3.8.1/envs/test doesn't activate deactivate the virtual environment and I don't see (test) username:~ in my shell. I also created a /home/users/test directory and .python-version there but still entering / leaving directory does nothing. Accordingn to the documentation:  If eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)" is configured in your shell, pyenv-virtualenv will automatically activate/deactivate virtualenvs on entering/leaving directories which contain a .python-version file that contains the name of a valid virtual environment as shown in the output of pyenv virtualenvs (e.g., venv34 or 3.4.3/envs/venv34 in example above) . .python-version files are used by pyenv to denote local Python versions and can be created and deleted with the pyenv local command.   So first question is: Why this doesn't work? Why the virtual environment is not activated / deactivated automatically at entering / leaving a directory containing a .python-version file?  Also when I activate virtualenv by hand pyenv activate test and then check the Python version, it prints the system Python version and not the one from environment: Python 3.8.1: python --version Python 3.7.6  I can get the right Python version only by directly referring to virtualenv shims Python like this: which python /home/andre/.pyenv/shims/python /home/andre/.pyenv/shims/python --version Python 3.8.1  The behaviour is the same whenever the virtualenv "test" is activated or not. I would expect that after activating "test" the command python --version returns Python 3.8.1 So second question: why pip and python are not switched when activating / deactivating the virtual environment ? Are these pyenv bugs? Or am I doing something wrong?

Answer: It turns out that in order to automatically activate / deactivate a venv when entering / leaving a directory the .python-version file in there must contain the venv name and not the Python version associated with that venv So executing: pyenv local 3.8.1 creates a .python-version file which only includes the Python version 3.8.1. Then entering / leaving a directory containing .python-version file will set / unset the Python version specified in that file but will not activate / deactivate any venv. To create a .python-version file that will do both: activate a virtual environment and set Python version the command should look like: pyenv local test where test is a venv created with: pyenv virtualenv 3.8.1 test. So changing 3.8.1 to test in the .python-version fixed the problem. After I done this the venv was activated / deactivated when entering / leaving directory containing .python-version. But still the Python version did not change to the one associated with the venv (in this case 3.8.1) Then I found out that I had two lines in my .profile that was causing this problem: alias python=/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/python3 alias pip=/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/pip3  After removing these lines everything works as expected. If still having any problems make sure you have these lines in your .profile or .bash_profile, whichever one you are using: export PATH="$HOME/.pyenv/bin:$PATH" eval "$(pyenv init -)" eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)" if command -v pyenv 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv" export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH" eval "$(pyenv init --path)" eval "$(pyenv init -)" fi