In the conda environment list, what does the asterisk mean?

Question

I am learning about conda and I am trying to verify I understand the notion of the "active" environment as opposed to ... something else I don't understand.

In particular, conda env list or conda info -e will list environments and always seems to put an asterisk next to one of them, like here where it puts it by the "base" environment:

$ conda info -e
# conda environments:
#
base                  *  /Users/alexis/miniconda3
mynotebook               /Users/alexis/miniconda3/envs/mynotebook

But this does not mean the base environment is currently active, as I can see by doing conda info:

$ conda info | head -3

     active environment : None
            shell level : 0

So if the asterisk does not indicate the active environment, what does it indicate?

Answer 1

You are very close to having the full understanding. The * does indeed mean the active environment, which in the absence of specifically activated environment is the base.

Consider the following

$ conda info -e
# conda environments:
#
base                  *  /Users/alexis/miniconda3
mynotebook               /Users/alexis/miniconda3/envs/mynotebook
$ conda install pandas

Without activating a conda environment, the base is active in this instance, and pandas will be added to the base 'environment'.

Whereas

$ conda activate mynotebook
(mynotebook)$ conda info -e
# conda environments:
#
base                      /Users/alexis/miniconda3
mynotebook            *   /Users/alexis/miniconda3/envs/mynotebook
(mynotebook)$ conda install pandas

Will install into the specific environment that is activated.