diff --git a/.github/workflows/test.yml b/.github/workflows/test.yml
index e4d9a91fb..4a17fcde1 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/test.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/test.yml
@@ -18,11 +18,9 @@ jobs:
       uses: actions/setup-python@v5
       with:
         python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
-    # install rdkit and openbabel
-    - name: Install rdkit
-      run: python -m pip install rdkit openbabel-wheel
+    - run: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
     - name: Install dependencies
-      run: python -m pip install .[amber,ase,pymatgen] coverage ./tests/plugin
+      run: uv pip install --system .[amber,ase,pymatgen] coverage ./tests/plugin rdkit openbabel-wheel
     - name: Test
       run: cd tests && coverage run --source=../dpdata -m unittest && cd .. && coverage combine tests/.coverage && coverage report
     - name: Run codecov
diff --git a/.github/workflows/test_import.yml b/.github/workflows/test_import.yml
index 6ab0dbe2d..9f429819d 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/test_import.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/test_import.yml
@@ -13,5 +13,6 @@ jobs:
       with:
         python-version: '3.9'
         architecture: 'x64'
-    - run: python -m pip install .
+    - run: python -m pip install uv
+    - run: python -m uv pip install --system .
     - run: python -c 'import dpdata'