Do you have to reinstall fastAPI every time you want to open a websocket server?

Question

I am working on my laptop, so theoretically everything should stay downloaded - but when I reopen the ChatterBox project, it doesn't seem to remember what fastAPI is, and it doesn't work unless I redownload it using the terminal to get the libraries.

Answer 1

You shouldn't have to reinstall it, but you would need to reactivate the venv virtual environment again each time, because the library was only installed in the virtual environment.

You could also install the libraries globally on your computer using pip without using a virtual environment, and that would be less hassle for this project. It just wouldn't be "best practice" for developers who work on multiple Python projects.