Working with packages¶

The anaconda-project.yml file enables specification of required packages and multiple Conda environments, referred to as env_specs.

For example the following anaconda-project.yml file will install python version 3.8, and latest version pandas and notebook into the default environment when you execute anaconda-project prepare on the command line.

name: ExampleProject

packages:
  - python=3.8
  - notebook
  - pandas

env_specs:
  default: {}

When anaconda-project prepare is run a new environment is created called default in the envs subdirectory of your project. See Configuration to change the default location of the Conda environments.

Adding packages¶

To add packages to your project that are not yet in your packages: list there are two approaches.

From within your project directory, run:

anaconda-project add-packages package1 package2

NOTE: Replace package1 and package2 with the names of the packages that you want to include. You can specify as many packages as you want.

EXAMPLE: To add the packages hvplot=0.7 and dask:

$ anaconda-project add-packages hvplot=0.7 dask
Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): ...working... done
Solving environment: ...working... done
...
Executing transaction: ...working... done
Using Conda environment /Users/adefusco/Desktop/iris/envs/default.
Added packages to project file: hvplot=0.7, dask.

Instead of using the add-packages command you can edit the anaconda-project.yml file directly using any text editor and add package names to the packages: list. To complete the installation of these new packages into your activate environment run anaconda-project prepare on the command line after saving the file.

In addition to adding Conda packages as shown above Pip packages can be specified using the --pip flag:

anaconda-project add-packages --pip package1 package2

NOTE: Replace package1 and package2 with the names of the packages that you want to include. You can specify as many packages as you want.

EXAMPLE: To add the requests package to the default environment:

$ anaconda-project add-packages --pip requests
Collecting requests
  Using cached requests-2.25.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (61 kB)
Requirement already satisfied: certifi>=2017.4.17 in ./envs/default/lib/python3.8/site-packages (from requests) (2020.12.5)
Collecting idna<3,>=2.5
  Using cached idna-2.10-py2.py3-none-any.whl (58 kB)
Collecting chardet<5,>=3.0.2
  Using cached chardet-4.0.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (178 kB)
Collecting urllib3<1.27,>=1.21.1
  Using cached urllib3-1.26.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl (153 kB)
Installing collected packages: urllib3, idna, chardet, requests
Successfully installed chardet-4.0.0 idna-2.10 requests-2.25.1 urllib3-1.26.4
Using Conda environment /Users/adefusco/Desktop/testproj/envs/default.
Added packages to project file: requests.

Optionally, you can edit the anaconda-project.yml file to add packages using the pip: key within the packages: list. For example,

name: ExampleProject

packages:
  - python=3.8
  - notebook
  - pandas
  - pip:
    - requests

env_specs:
  default: {}

Then run anaconda-project prepare to install the new packages into the environment.

Package Channels¶

Note

Breaking Change in version 0.11.0. All channels you wish to search through for packages must be supplied on the CLI or in the project YAML file. To support reproducible projects that build the same way for different users, Anaconda Project will not respect channels declared in your .condarc file.

Note

Backwards compatibility fix in version 0.11.1. The defaults channel is always appended to the list of channels even if it is not specified in the channels: list in the project file or with the -c flag using the CLI. If the defaults channel is specified no change is made. To avoid including the defaults channel add the channel name nodefaults.

Up till now we have not instructed Conda to install packages from specific channels, so all packages are installed from the Conda default channels. If no channels are speicified in the project file or on the command line then the defaults channel is used.

name: ExampleProject

packages:
  - python=3.8
  - notebook
  - pandas
  - pip:
    - requests

env_specs:
  default: {}

To install packages from one or more channels use the -c <channel-name> flag, just like conda install. To specify multiple channels add more -c <channel-name> flags. The order in which the flags appear is the order that Conda will check for available packages. Equivalently, you can edit the anaconda-project.yml to supply a list of channels in the channels: key.

For example:

anaconda-project add-packages -c defaults -c conda-forge fastapi

The resulting anaconda-project.yml file is now

name: ExampleProject

packages:
  - python=3.8
  - notebook
  - pandas
  - pip:
    - requests

channels:
  - defaults
  - conda-forge

env_specs:
  default: {}

If you wish to avoid using the defaults channel you must add the channel nodefaults. This will instruct Anaconda Project to not append the defaults channel automatically. The order in which nodefaults appears does not matter.

For example to install packages only from the conda-forge channel:

anaconda-project add-packages -c conda-forge -c nodefaults fastapi

The resulting anaconda-project.yml file is now

name: ExampleProject

packages:
  - python=3.8
  - notebook
  - pandas
  - pip:
    - requests

channels:
  - conda-forge
  - nodefaults

env_specs:
  default: {}

Removing packages¶

To remove packages from the packages: list run:

anaconda-project remove-packages package1 package2

NOTE: Replace package1 and package2 with the names of the packages that you want to include. You can specify as many packages as you want.

EXAMPLE: To remove the package hvplot:

$ anaconda-project remove-packages hvplot
Using Conda environment /Users/adefusco/Desktop/testproj/envs/default.
Removed packages from project file: hvplot.

EXAMPLE: To remove the requests pip package from the default environment:

$ anaconda-project remove-packages --pip requests
Found existing installation: requests 2.25.1
Uninstalling requests-2.25.1:
  Successfully uninstalled requests-2.25.1
Using Conda environment /Users/adefusco/Desktop/testproj/envs/default.
Removed packages from project file: requests.

Pip package specifications¶

Pip packages can specified in a number of ways.

From PyPI (or other indexes)
Direct URL to the package archive
Revision Control services (for example git and svn)

To install a package from a revision control service:

anaconda-project add-packages --pip git+<protocol>://<revision-control-domain>/<repository.git>[version-branch]#egg=<package-name>

Where

<protocol> is the web protocol of the domain: i.e, http or https
<revision-control-domain> is the URL of the service: i.e. github.com
<repository.git> is the name of the revision control repository, you can include the branch name or release tag here.
[version-branch] optionally install a specific version or branch of the repository
<package> is the name of the package as declared in setup.py

NOTE: It is required that you use #egg=<package> to install a revision control hosted package. This is considered best practice by pip and allows the pip dependency solver to correctly identify the package if it is a dependency of another package in your project.

EXAMPLE: Add the tranquilizer package to your project directly from Github:

$ anaconda-project add-packages --pip git+https://github.com/continuumio/tranquilizer.git@0.5.0#egg=tranquilizer
Collecting tranquilizer
Cloning https://github.com/continuumio/tranquilizer.git (to revision 0.5.0) to /private/var/folders/lk/s__7f9fx15x_zrw6q5xkmm500000gp/T/pip-install-5ncd7pbt/tranquilizer_d037aa7b85d048c1acd4e2f0044c4cea
Using Conda environment /Users/adefusco/Desktop/testproj/envs/default.
Added packages to project file: git+https://github.com/continuumio/tranquilizer.git@0.5.0#egg=tranquilizer.

Alternatively for github you can use the URL of the repository archive. For example, to install from the master branch of tranquilizer:

$ anaconda-project add-packages --pip https://github.com/continuumio/tranquilizer/archive/master.zip#egg=tranquilizer
Collecting tranquilizer
Downloading https://github.com/continuumio/tranquilizer/archive/master.zip
Using Conda environment /Users/adefusco/Desktop/testproj/envs/default.
Added packages to project file: https://github.com/continuumio/tranquilizer/archive/master.zip#egg=tranquilizer.