# Best practice for temporarily loading a package without polluting Manifest.toml and Project.toml?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-for-temporarily-loading-a-package-without-polluting-manifest-toml-and-project-toml/70693>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** packages\
**Created:** [October 31, 2021, 3:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-for-temporarily-loading-a-package-without-polluting-manifest-toml-and-project-toml/70693 "2021-10-31T15:48:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![robsmith11](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/robsmith11/32/29641_2.png) [@robsmith11](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/robsmith11)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 3:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-for-temporarily-loading-a-package-without-polluting-manifest-toml-and-project-toml/70693/1 "2021-10-31T15:48:02Z")

</div>

Say I’m working on a project and want to plot something so I add a plotting package for looking at some test data. But when my package is actually built and deployed, I don’t want the plotting package and all of its dependencies to be shipped with it.

Is there a recommended way to use libraries while developing a package without having them actually added to the Manifest.toml and Project.toml? I still want to use the exact versions of dependencies from the project’s Manifest.toml though, so I guess I want like a temporary project overlay.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![giordano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/giordano/32/2166_2.png) [@giordano](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/giordano)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-for-temporarily-loading-a-package-without-polluting-manifest-toml-and-project-toml/70693/2 "2021-10-31T15:50:35Z")

</div>

```julia
]activate --temp

```

is the temporary project overlay you’re looking for
