If you want to not infect your current shell with the new environment, you can just run it in a subshell by using parentheses: $ ( . /full_path/env/bin/act

If you want to not infect your current shell with the new environment, you can just run it in a subshell by using parentheses: $ ( . /full_path/env/bin/activate && python myapp.py --workers=3 ) This works for anything that you'd like a temporary shell for: $ pwd /home/me $ ( cd /tmp; pwd ) /tmp $ pwd /home/me