# Pkg & activation

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pkg-activation/114723>\
**Category:** Package Management\
**Created:** [May 25, 2024, 3:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pkg-activation/114723 "2024-05-25T15:04:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![BLI](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/bli/32/37206_2.png) [@BLI](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BLI)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pkg-activation/114723/3 "2024-05-25T16:18:10Z")

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OK – `Pkg.status()` tells me that I’m in the local directory!!

```julia
C:\Users\Bernt\OneDrive\...\Notebooks\Project.toml` (empty project)

```

This is so, even though I did not do `Pkg.activate(".")`!!

- So this implies that (at least when I run Jupyter Notebooks in VSCode), command `Pkg.activate(".")` is not needed – it will always first search for the `*.toml` files locally!
- If there is no `*.toml` files locally, it will go to the global environment and use the `*.toml` files there.

This also implies that I can not use my strategy of having multiple related notebooks in one directory where one of them uses a local environment! (Unless I explicitly specify the global environment in every notebook that do not use the local one?)

Perhaps I misunderstand the role of `Pkg.activate()`… I thought that was meant to specify what is the active environment, and if unspecified, the global environment is used. But instead, it seems to just be to activate the _creation_ of local `*.toml` files??

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pkg-activation/114723)._