Dependency versions

Aider expects to be installed with the correct versions of all of its required dependencies.

If you’ve been linked to this doc from a GitHub issue, or if aider is reporting ImportErrors it is likely that your aider install is using incorrect dependencies.

Avoid package conflicts

If you are using aider to work on a python project, sometimes your project will require specific versions of python packages which conflict with the versions that aider requires. If this happens, you may see errors like these when running pip installs:

aider-chat 0.23.0 requires somepackage==X.Y.Z, but you have somepackage U.W.V which is incompatible.

Install with aider-install, uv or pipx

If you are having dependency problems you should consider installing aider using aider-install, uv or pipx. This will ensure that aider is installed in its own python environment, with the correct set of dependencies.

Package managers like Homebrew, AUR, ports

Package managers often install aider with the wrong dependencies, leading to import errors and other problems.

It is recommended to install aider using aider-install, uv or pipx.

Dependency versions matter

Aider pins its dependencies and is tested to work with those specific versions. If you are installing aider directly with pip you should be careful about upgrading or downgrading the python packages that aider uses.

In particular, be careful with the packages with pinned versions noted at the end of aider’s requirements.in file. These versions are pinned because aider is known not to work with the latest versions of these libraries.

Also be wary of upgrading litellm, as it changes versions frequently and sometimes introduces bugs or backwards incompatible changes.

Replit

To use aider with pipx on replit, you can run these commands in the replit shell:

pip install pipx
pipx run aider-chat ...normal aider args...

If you install aider with pipx on replit and try and run it as just aider it will crash with a missing libstdc++.so.6 library.