Installing Python

Download the current stable release (3.13 at the time of writing) from python.org/downloads.

• Windows — run the installer, and check "Add python.exe to PATH" on the first screen (easy to miss, and the most common setup mistake).
• macOS — the installer from python.org is recommended over the version macOS ships with, which is often outdated.
• Linux — Python 3 is usually already installed; check with the command below.

Confirm the install worked:

python3 --version

Common mistakes

• Running python --version and seeing Python 2.x — on some systems python still points at an old Python 2 install. Use python3 explicitly, or reinstall so python points at Python 3.