Description

This pull request introduces uv as the recommended tool for managing Python dependencies and virtual environments in this project. uv is a high-performance Python package installer and resolver from Astral, intended as a drop-in replacement for pip and pip-tools.

By adopting uv, we can benefit from:

• Drastically faster dependency installation and resolution, improving developer setup time and CI/CD pipeline speed.
• A unified toolchain for environment and package management.

How to Use

1. Install uv (if you haven't already):

   # Via curl on macOS/Linux
   curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
   # Or via pip
   pip install uv

2. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies:
   From the root of the repository:

   # Create a virtual environment in .venv
   uv venv
   
   # Install dependencies (including dev dependencies)
   uv sync

This PR sets the foundation for leveraging uv's capabilities. Future work could include migrating CI scripts to use uv for faster builds.