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name: installation-and-backends description: "Routes PhiFlow installation, import, backend detection, and environment smoke checks." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: MIT

Installation and Backends

Use this sub-skill when the user asks to install PhiFlow, verify that the package imports, check phi.verify(), inspect phi.detect_backends(), or sort out missing optional backend/UI dependencies.

Route here for

• editable installs from a local checkout
• published-package installs via pip install phiflow
• import failures involving phi or phiml
• backend detection and backend readiness questions
• Dash / Plotly web-UI setup and smoke checks

Do not route here

• field, geometry, scene, or mesh workflows -> core-data-and-geometry
• advection, diffusion, fluids, waves, FLIP, or SPH -> physics-and-simulation
• gradients, Jacobians, or inverse problems -> optimization-and-learning
• plotting, controls, or scalar logs after install -> visualization-and-ui

Start with these commands

python -m pip install -e .
python scripts/check_install.py --show-backends

If you only need the published wheel, install phiflow from PyPI. The import name is phi, and the repository depends on phiml for the tensor/backends layer.

Verified runtime facts

• phi.verify() is the package smoke check and reports the minimal runtime status plus the Dash / Plotly web-UI status.
• phi.detect_backends() returns the registered backends that are available in the current environment.
• phi.flow re-exports the common field, geometry, physics, and plotting names for convenience, but this sub-skill still expects the package to be installed correctly.

Common choices

1. Local inspection from a checkout: use editable install plus the smoke script in this skill tree.
2. Only need the published package: install phiflow, then run python -c "import phi; phi.verify()".
3. Need web UI support: install dash and plotly as well.
4. Need backend-specific work: install the backend wheel that matches the workflow you are actually using, then re-run the smoke check.

Read next

• references/install-and-backends.md for install choices and backend notes.
• references/troubleshooting.md for missing package, missing backend, or stale-doc failures.
• ../../scripts/check_install.py to run the safe install smoke check from this skill tree.