Use a prerelease version of Cookieplone

Use a prerelease version of Cookieplone#

By default, uvx cookieplone installs the latest stable release, such as Cookieplone 2.0.0. Before a new release, Cookieplone publishes prerelease versions: those with an aN, bN, rcN, or .devN suffix, like 2.1.0a1. Prereleases are excluded from automatic resolution. This matches PEP 440 and the uv resolver defaults, and it is the right behavior for everyday use: you want the tested, stable version when you scaffold a real project.

When testing an upcoming release, reproducing a bug against an unreleased fix, or evaluating upcoming features, you need to opt in explicitly. This guide shows the three supported ways to do that. The examples use 2.1.0a1 as a placeholder; replace it with the prerelease you want to run.

Why uvx cookieplone skips prereleases#

uvx cookieplone is shorthand for uv tool run cookieplone. uv resolves the cookieplone requirement against PyPI the same way pip does, and PEP 440 says that prereleases are only picked when:

  1. The requirement specifier itself is a prerelease (for example, cookieplone==2.1.0a1), or

  2. Only prereleases satisfy the requirement (no stable release matches at all), or

  3. The caller explicitly enables prereleases.

When a stable release and a newer prerelease are both published on PyPI, conditions (1) and (2) do not apply, so the stable release wins.

Option 2: Allow prereleases for one run#

If you do not want to pin a specific version (for example, because you want the latest alpha whatever its number is), pass --prerelease=allow to uvx:

uvx --prerelease=allow cookieplone

uv will resolve cookieplone against PyPI with prereleases enabled and pick the most recent version overall, stable or not. This is a per-invocation flag: the next plain uvx cookieplone reverts to the stable-only behavior.

Option 3: Install the prerelease as a persistent tool#

If you expect to run the prerelease repeatedly (for example, while testing your templates against it), install it as a persistent uv tool:

uv tool install --prerelease=allow cookieplone

After that, cookieplone is on your PATH and every invocation uses the persistent prerelease install.

If you already installed Cookieplone this way from a stable release and want to move to a prerelease, force a reinstall so the cached stable environment is replaced:

uv tool install --reinstall --prerelease=allow cookieplone

To upgrade an existing prerelease install to the most recent prerelease on PyPI:

uv tool upgrade --prerelease=allow cookieplone

To go back to stable, reinstall without the flag:

uv tool install --reinstall cookieplone

Verify the active version#

Regardless of which option you chose, check what you are actually running:

cookieplone --version

Or, for the uvx ephemeral forms:

uvx cookieplone@2.1.0a1 --version
uvx --prerelease=allow cookieplone --version

The output includes the full version string, so you can tell 2.1.0a1 apart from 2.0.0 at a glance.

When to use a prerelease#

  • You are following a guide explicitly written against an upcoming release.

  • You are reproducing a bug against an unreleased fix.

  • You are a template author validating your template against a new Cookieplone version before general availability.

  • You are evaluating new features before they land in a stable release.

For generating a real production project, prefer the stable release. Prereleases can change their CLI, config format, or filter behavior without notice, and new bugs can appear between alphas.

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