anaconda search path for environments?

Question

Can the anaconda tools that manipulate environments use a search path when looking for environments?

I would like to have a single anaconda installation shared among our group, with a shared set of read-only environments and each user also having their own set of writable personal environments.

Commands like conda env list and conda info -e would have to iterate over an environment search path. So would activate.

Does conda support such an architecture?

Answer 1

I think the answer yes, the envs_dirs configuration parameter can be set in your $HOME/.configrc file (looks like yaml) to change the list of directories searched for environments. You can also set the conda environment search path via the CONDA_ENVS_PATH shell environment variable

https://conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/configuration/use-condarc.html#specify-environment-directories-envs-dirs

However the specific usage scenario outlined above is already handled without modifying any configuration parameters.

If the anaconda install directory is not writable, then conda searches both the shared environments and the environments under $HOME/.conda/envs.

If the anaconda installation directory is writable, the per-user environments in $HOME/envs are silently ignored.