running fabric script locally

Yes, you can run fab locally by using method local instead of run. What I do typically is have methods for setting up the environment, and call these methods first before calling the actual task. Let me illustrate this with an example for your specific question

fabfile.py

    from fabric.operations import local as lrun, run    from fabric.api import task    from fabric.state import env    @task    def localhost():        env.run = lrun        env.hosts = ['localhost']    @task    def remote():        env.run = run        env.hosts = ['some.remote.host']    @task    def install():        env.run('deploymentcmd')

And based on the environment, you can do the following

Install on localhost:

    fab localhost install

Install on remote machine:

    fab remote install

I am using another trick for executing remote task locally:

from fabric.api import run, sudo, localfrom contextlib import contextmanager@contextmanagerdef locally():    global run    global sudo    global local    _run, _sudo = run, sudo    run = sudo = local    yield    run, sudo = _run, _sudodef local_task():    with locally():        run("ls -la")

Slightly less elegant than Varun's answer, but maybe more practical by defaulting to run on the local machine unless another environment selector is given.

from fabric.api import *# default to running on localhostenv.hosts = ["localhost"]DEPLOYMENT_PATH = "/some/path/{}/"def local_or_remote(*args, **kwargs):    func = local if env.host == "localhost" else run    return func(*args, **kwargs)@taskdef live():    """    Select live environment    """    env.hosts = ["host1", "host2"]    env.path = DEPLOYMENT_PATH.format("live")@taskdef beta():    """    Select beta environment    """    env.hosts = ["host1", "host2"]    env.path = DEPLOYMENT_PATH.format("beta")@taskdef host_info():    local_or_remote("uname -a")

Then run locally as:

fab host_info

or remotely with:

fab live host_info

PS. Here is the Github issue on this topic.