Environments & packages

Robot Framework needs a Python environment with robotframework and your libraries. Robot Studio manages that environment per project.

Environments

From Manage Environments… you can:

Action	Use when
Create	You want a fresh Studio-managed venv
Import	You already have a venv elsewhere
Clone	You want a copy of an existing environment
Activate	You want runs and language features to use that env

In the manager list, the active environment shows a green, disabled Active button. Choose Activate on another row to switch. There is no separate Active badge on the row.

Studio-managed environments live under .robotstudio/environments/. Legacy Environments/ folders and common local names (.venv, venv, env) are still discovered. Choosing Use on a detected .venv registers it as venv (leading dots are stripped from the display name).

The status bar shows ROBOT and PYTHON versions from the active environment so you can confirm you are on the stack you expect. Creating or importing an environment also shows a short confirmation in the status bar.

Packages

With an environment active:

Open the Packages activity-bar rail.
Browse installed packages or search PyPI.
Install, update, or uninstall as needed.

Package search (Search installed and PyPI) matches package names only — exact, then prefix, then substring. Summaries are not searched, and there is no fuzzy / typo matching. Hyphen, underscore, and dot are treated as equivalent.

This is the usual path for libraries such as robotframework-seleniumlibrary, robotframework-browser, and project-specific packages.

Health tips

If completions or diagnostics look wrong after switching environments, wait for indexing to settle, then reopen the file.
Missing Library / Resource imports show in the Problems panel (and editor diagnostics) — not in Robot Doctor. Doctor covers structural project-wide issues (circular imports, duplicate keywords, unused assets).
Prefer one clearly activated environment per project so runs and analysis stay aligned.