Quickstart: Repeatable deployments with the mssql-python driver for Python

In this quickstart, you use uv to manage project dependencies and environments for a Python script that connects to a database that you created and loaded with sample data. You use the mssql-python driver for Python to connect to your database and perform basic operations, such as reading and writing data.

The mssql-python driver doesn't require any external dependencies on Windows machines. The driver installs everything that it needs with a single pip install, allowing you to use the latest version of the driver for new scripts without breaking other scripts that you don't have time to upgrade and test.

mssql-python documentation | mssql-python source code | Package (PyPI) | uv

Prerequisites

Python 3.10 or later.
If you don't already have Python, install the Python runtime and pip package manager from python.org.
Don't want to use your own environment? Follow Container and local development to create a reproducible devcontainer or GitHub Codespaces environment.
Visual Studio Code with the following extensions:
- Python extension for Visual Studio Code
Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) for passwordless authentication on macOS and Linux.
If you don't already have uv, follow the installation instructions.
A database on SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, or SQL database in Fabric with the AdventureWorks2025 sample schema and a valid connection string.

Install operating system prerequisites

Install one-time operating system specific prerequisites. Windows users can skip this step. For full platform details, see Install mssql-python.

apk add libtool krb5-libs krb5-dev libstdc++

apt-get install -y libltdl7 libkrb5-3 libgssapi-krb5-2

dnf install -y libtool-ltdl krb5-libs

zypper install -y libltdl7 libkrb5-3 libgssapi-krb5-2

zypper install -y libltdl7

brew install openssl

Create a SQL database

Create or connect to a SQL database on one of the following platforms:

Create a SQL database in minutes using the Azure portal

Create a new project

Open a command prompt in your development directory. If you don't have one, create a new directory, such as python or scripts. Avoid folders on your OneDrive, as synchronization can interfere with managing your virtual environment.

Create a new project with uv.

uv init mssql-python-repeatable-qs
cd mssql-python-repeatable-qs

Add dependencies

In the same directory, install the mssql-python, python-dotenv, and rich packages.

uv add mssql-python python-dotenv rich

Launch Visual Studio Code

In the same directory, run the following command.

code .

Update pyproject.toml

Open the pyproject.toml file in your editor. This file contains the metadata for your project.
Review the contents of the file. It should be similar to this example. Note the Python version and dependency for mssql-python use >= to define a minimum version. If you prefer an exact version, change the >= before the version number to ==. The resolved versions of each package are stored in the uv.lock. The lockfile ensures that developers working on the project use consistent package versions. It also ensures that the exact same set of package versions is used when distributing your package to end users. Commit both pyproject.toml and uv.lock, review lockfile changes in pull requests, and run an organization-approved dependency scanner in CI. Don't edit the uv.lock file directly.
```
[project]
name = "mssql-python-repeatable-qs"
version = "0.1.0"
description = "Add your description here"
readme = "README.md"
requires-python = ">=3.11"
dependencies = [
    "mssql-python>=1.16.0",
    "python-dotenv>=1.1.1",
    "rich>=14.1.0",
]
```

Update the description value.

description = "Connects to a SQL database using mssql-python"

Save and close the file.

Update main.py

Open the file named main.py. It should be similar to this example.

def main():
    print("Hello from mssql-python-repeatable-qs!")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

At the top of the file, add the following imports before the line with def main().

Tip

If Visual Studio Code is having trouble resolving packages, you need to update the interpreter to use the virtual environment.

from os import getenv
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from mssql_python import connect, Connection, Cursor
from rich.console import Console
from rich.progress import Progress, SpinnerColumn, TextColumn
from rich.table import Table
from argparse import ArgumentParser
from time import sleep

Between the imports and the line with def main(), add the following code.

def get_results(sleep_time: int = 0) -> None:
    with Progress(
        SpinnerColumn(),
        TextColumn("[progress.description]{task.description}"),
        transient=True,
    ) as progress:
        task = progress.add_task(description="Connecting to SQL...")

        cursor = query_sql()

        # Simulate a slow connection for demo purposes
        sleep(sleep_time)

        progress.update(task, description="Formatting results...")

        table = Table(title="Orders by Customer")
        # https://rich.readthedocs.io/en/stable/appendix/colors.html
        table.add_column("Customer ID", style="bright_blue", justify="center")
        table.add_column("Company Name", style="bright_white", justify="left")
        table.add_column("Order Count", style="bold green", justify="right")

        records = cursor.fetchall()
        for r in records:
            table.add_row(f"{r.CustomerID}", f"{r.CompanyName}", f"{r.OrderCount}")

        if cursor:
            cursor.close()

        # Simulate a slow connection for demo purposes
        sleep(sleep_time)

        progress.stop()

        Console().print(table)

Between the imports and def get_results(sleep_time: int = 0) -> None:, add this code.

_connection = None

def get_connection() -> Connection:
    global _connection
    if not _connection:
        load_dotenv()
        _connection = connect(getenv("SQL_CONNECTION_STRING"))  # type: ignore
    return _connection

def query_sql() -> Cursor:
    SQL_QUERY = """
    SELECT TOP 5
        c.CustomerID,
        c.CompanyName,
        COUNT(soh.SalesOrderID) AS OrderCount
    FROM SalesLT.Customer AS c
    LEFT OUTER JOIN SalesLT.SalesOrderHeader AS soh
        ON c.CustomerID = soh.CustomerID
    GROUP BY
        c.CustomerID,
        c.CompanyName
    ORDER BY OrderCount DESC;
    """

    conn = get_connection()
    cursor = conn.cursor()
    cursor.execute(SQL_QUERY)
    return cursor

Find this code.

def main():
    print("Hello from mssql-python-repeatable-qs!")

Replace it with this code.

def main() -> None:
    parser = ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument("--sleep-time", type=int, default=0,
                        help="Time to sleep in seconds to simulate slow connection")
    args = parser.parse_args()

    if args.sleep_time > 0:
        get_results(args.sleep_time)
    else:
        get_results()

    if _connection:
        _connection.close()

Save and close main.py.

Save the connection string

Open the .gitignore file and add an exclusion for .env files. Your file should be similar to the following example.

# Python-generated files
__pycache__/
*.py[oc]
build/
dist/
wheels/
*.egg-info

# Virtual environments
.venv

# Connection strings and secrets
.env

Save and close .gitignore.
In the current directory, create a new file named .env.
Within the .env file, add an entry for your connection string named SQL_CONNECTION_STRING. Replace the placeholders with your actual values.
```
SQL_CONNECTION_STRING="Server=<server>;Database=<database>;Encrypt=yes;TrustServerCertificate=no;Authentication=ActiveDirectoryInteractive"
```
Important

Keep .env local and out of source control. For CI and deployed environments, inject the connection string or its component secrets from your platform secret store instead of copying .env between machines.

The connection string depends on the type of SQL database you're connecting to. For Azure SQL Database or SQL database in Fabric, use the ODBC connection string from the connection strings tab, and adjust the authentication type for your scenario. For more information about connection string syntax, see Connection strings for mssql-python.

Tip

On macOS, both ActiveDirectoryInteractive and ActiveDirectoryDefault work for Microsoft Entra authentication. ActiveDirectoryInteractive prompts you to sign in every time you run the script. To avoid repeated sign-in prompts, sign in once with the Azure CLI az login command, and use ActiveDirectoryDefault. ActiveDirectoryDefault reuses the cached credential.

Use uv run to execute the script

In the terminal window from before, or a new terminal window open to the same directory, run the following command.
```
uv run main.py
```

Run the script again with a delay so that you can see both status updates.

uv run main.py --sleep-time 5

Here's the expected output when the script completes.

                         Orders by Customer
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Customer ID ┃ Company Name                   ┃ Order Count ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│    29485    │ Professional Sales and Service │           1 │
│    29531    │ Remarkable Bike Store          │           1 │
│    29546    │ Bulk Discount Store            │           1 │
│    29568    │ Coalition Bike Company         │           1 │
│    29584    │ Futuristic Bikes               │           1 │
└─────────────┴────────────────────────────────┴─────────────┘

To deploy your script to another machine, copy the project files, including pyproject.toml and uv.lock, but not the .venv folder or any local .env file. Recreate the virtual environment on first run and supply secrets through the target environment.

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