Hey everyone, hope you're having a great day.

So, you're looking to get your hands dirty with Anthropic's latest & greatest, Claude Sonnet 4, but you're also a fan of keeping your development environment sane with . You've come to the right place. Honestly, managing Python versions & dependencies can be a real headache, but tools like make it a whole lot easier. & when you combine that with the power of a cutting-edge language model like Sonnet 4, you can do some pretty cool stuff.

In this guide, I'm going to walk you through the whole process, from setting up a -managed Python environment to making your first API call to Claude Sonnet 4. We'll cover everything you need to know to get these two powerful tools working together in harmony.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty, let's talk a bit about why is such a big deal. If you've been in the Python game for a while, you've probably heard of or used tools like for managing different Python versions & or for creating isolated project environments. These are great tools, but takes things to the next level by providing a single, unified interface for managing not just Python, but a whole host of other languages like Node.js, Ruby, & Go.

One of the coolest things about is its use of a file in your project directory. This file tells which version of Python (or any other tool) your project needs. When you into that directory, automatically switches to the correct version. No more manually activating virtual environments or switching Python versions. It's a small thing, but it makes a HUGE difference in your day-to-day workflow.

also has this awesome feature where it can automatically create & manage virtual environments for you. This is a lifesaver for keeping your project dependencies separate & avoiding the dreaded "dependency hell." We'll see how to set this up in a bit.

First things first, you're going to need an API key to access Claude Sonnet 4. Head over to the Anthropic website, create an account if you don't have one already, & then navigate to your API settings to generate a new key. Keep this key handy, as we'll need it in a little bit.

Now for the fun part. Let's get our Python environment set up with . If you don't have installed yet, you can follow the instructions on their official website. Once you've got it installed, we can get to work.

The first thing we need to do is install the version of Python we want to use for our project. I'm going to use Python 3.11 for this example, but you can use any version you like. To install it, just run this command in your terminal: