How to use python3.10 in Azure Promptflow with custom image

Question

How to use python3.10 in Azure Promptflow with custom image

Lai, Joseph 0

I am trying to use python3.10 in Azure ML Promptflow rather than the default 3.9 in order to use semantic kernel. When I try to create the updated base image, I am getting an error that the promptflow.runtime module is not found. I have installed the promptflow and promptflow[azure] packages in my base image but I've seen that it doesn't include the promptflow-runtime package.

How would I go about upgrading my Python version while still installing the promptflow runtime?

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Answer 1

Azar 29,520 MVP Volunteer Moderator

Hi there Lai, Joseph

Thanks for using QandA platform

Try to create a Docker image with Python 3.10, install dependencies, and ensure promptflow-runtime is included. Use an Azure ML base image, install Python 3.10, upgrade pip, and add:

pip install promptflow promptflow[azure] promptflow-runtime

Set Python 3.10 in your environment and deploy using the custom image.

If this helps kindly accept the answer thanks much.

Lai, Joseph 0 Reputation points

2025-03-17T17:58:40.48+00:00

Hi, thanks for the response. I have attempted the above but I get the error that there is no matching distributions for promptflow-runtime
Saideep Anchuri 9,425 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-18T09:03:50.6066667+00:00
Hi Lai, Joseph

To use Python 3.10 in Azure ML Promptflow with a custom image, you will need to create a Dockerfile that specifies the base image you want to use, which should support Python 3.10. You can start from a base image that includes Python 3.10.

Here are the steps:

Start with a base image that has Python 3.10. You can find suitable images on Docker Hub or other repositories.

Create a Dockerfile and add the following content, then save the file:

FROM <Base_image> COPY ./* ./ RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y python3.10 python3-pip RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

Kindly refer below link: Customizebase image for compute session in prompt flow

Thank You.
Lai, Joseph 0 Reputation points

2025-03-18T10:16:06.0466667+00:00

Hi , thanks for your response. I understand that, but based on the above article, we should be using the Prompt Flow Base Images, as far as I am aware, none of these come with python >=3.10.

If I were to use another image, I would be unable to get the promptflow-runtime package. As mentioned in my first comment, none of the distributions for promptflow come with the promptflow-runtime packages which is required when running promptflow on azure ML (I get a ModuleNotFound error while starting the compute instance on PF)

To summarise, I need a way to install the promptflow-runtime package from a distribution, which I currently cannot find
Saideep Anchuri 9,425 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-18T12:21:37.2+00:00

Hi Lai, Joseph

Please mention the packages mentioned in "module not found error". You can find all releases of prompt flow here. Releases · microsoft/promptflow

Thank You.
Lai, Joseph 0 Reputation points

2025-03-18T16:55:18.4866667+00:00

Hi @Saideep Anchuri , the promptflow.runtime package is the package that is that is missing in the 'modul not found error'

I have tried looking within the site packages folder in the running image and cannot find the promptflow-runtime package in the downloaded packages, even after performing

pip install promptflow

pip install promptflow-azure

Saideep Anchuri 9,425 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Lai, Joseph

You can replace base image with a prompt flow version mentioned here.

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/azureml/promptflow/promptflow-runtime:latest 
COPY ./* ./                                                                                                                                                                                                            


RUN apt-get update && \ apt-get install -y python3.10 python3-pip 
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

Thank You.

Lai, Joseph 0 Reputation points

2025-03-19T11:29:42.73+00:00
Hi Hi @Saideep Anchuri , the above solution does not work due to the same issue, an inability to download the promptflow-runtime module. After python3.10 has been installed, and when running pip install -r requirements.txt, with the requirements file having the following structure

promptflow promptflow-runtime

You still get the following error

ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement promptflow-runtime (from versions: none) ERROR: No matching distribution found for promptflow-runtime

Without the promptflow-runtime file, the docker image will not work with Azure ML Promptflow.

Note here, I am defining the requirements.txt file, there is no requirements.txt file in the base image
Saideep Anchuri 9,425 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-19T15:17:00.9966667+00:00
Hi Lai, Joseph

prompt flow-runtime is based on MCR image. Please point the base image towards the MCR image of prompt here in this line from your docker File. FROM mcr.microsoft.com/azureml/promptflow/promptflow-runtime:latest You can also select the base image from advanced setting of compute session and from flow.dag.yaml with raw file mode.

Create and manage prompt flow compute sessions - Azure AI Foundry | Microsoft Learn

2https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-foundry/how-to/create-manage-compute-session#change-the-base-image

promptflow promptflow-tools

Thank You.
Saideep Anchuri 9,425 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-20T02:57:31.52+00:00

Hi Lai, Joseph

We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet.

Thank You.
Lai, Joseph 0 Reputation points

2025-03-21T12:19:27.5766667+00:00
Hi @Saideep Anchuri , no this solution does not work. Here is a breakdown of the problem

When I use the base image as per the MCR, it includes python3.9

Running apt-get install python3.10 installs python 3.10, however, the promptflow-runtime package is still contained within the python3.9 installation

As mentioned above, when i run try to install promptflow, promptflow-tools and promptflow-azure, these packages do not install the promptflow-runtime

I can try manually copying over the promptflow-runtime package from the python3.9 installation into the python3.10 installation, but this leads to dependency errors

Hence, there is no way to get the promptflow-runtime into the python3.10 environment

The second point on selecting the image on the flow.dag.yaml file is not the issue, I can do that fine but it won't run as the new image doesn't have the promptflow-runtime package

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How to use python3.10 in Azure Promptflow with custom image

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