Using Conda Environments and the Fish Shell

I recently started over with a fresh development environment and decided to try something new: I’m using Python 3 via miniconda. The first real hiccup I’ve run into is that conda’s environment activation/deactivation scheme only works in bash or zsh. I use fish. There is an open PR to get fish support for conda but in the meantime I hacked something together to help me out.

"Activating" a conda environment does a couple of things:

  • Puts the environment’s "bin" directory at the front of the PATH environment variable.
  • Sets a CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV environment variable that tells conda in which environment to do things when none is specified.
  • Adds the environment name to the prompt ala virtualenv.

Deactivating the environment resets everything to its pre-activation state. The fish functions I put together work like this:

~ > type python
python is /Users/---/miniconda3/bin/python
~ > condactivate env-name
(env-name) ~ > type python
python is /Users/---/miniconda3/envs/env-name/bin/python
(env-name) ~ > deactivate
~ > type python
python is /Users/---/miniconda3/bin/python

Here’s the text of the functions:

function condalist -d 'List conda environments.'
for dir in (ls $HOME/miniconda3/envs)
echo $dir
end
end
function condactivate -d 'Activate a conda environment' -a cenv
if test -z $cenv
echo 'Usage: condactivate <env name>'
return 1
end
# condabin will be the path to the bin directory
# in the specified conda environment
set condabin $HOME/miniconda3/envs/$cenv/bin
# check whether the condabin directory actually exists and
# exit the function with an error status if it does not
if not test -d $condabin
echo 'Environment not found.'
return 1
end
# deactivate an existing conda environment if there is one
if set -q __CONDA_ENV_ACTIVE
deactivate
end
# save the current path
set -xg DEFAULT_PATH $PATH
# put the condabin directory at the front of the PATH
set -xg PATH $condabin $PATH
# this is an undocumented environmental variable that influences
# how conda behaves when you don't specify an environment for it.
# https://github.com/conda/conda/issues/473
set -xg CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV $cenv
# set up the prompt so it has the env name in it
functions -e __original_fish_prompt
functions -c fish_prompt __original_fish_prompt
function fish_prompt
set_color blue
echo -n '('$CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV') '
set_color normal
__original_fish_prompt
end
# flag for whether a conda environment has been set
set -xg __CONDA_ENV_ACTIVE 'true'
end
function deactivate -d 'Deactivate a conda environment'
if set -q __CONDA_ENV_ACTIVE
# set PATH back to its default before activating the conda env
set -xg PATH $DEFAULT_PATH
set -e DEFAULT_PATH
# unset this so that conda behaves according to its default behavior
set -e CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV
# reset to the original prompt
functions -e fish_prompt
functions -c __original_fish_prompt fish_prompt
functions -e __original_fish_prompt
set -e __CONDA_ENV_ACTIVE
end
end
# aliases so condactivate and deactivate can have shorter names
function ca -d 'Activate a conda environment'
condactivate $argv
end
function cda -d 'Deactivate a conda environment'
deactivate $argv
end
# complete conda environment names when activating
complete -c condactivate -xA -a "(condalist)"
complete -c ca -xA -a "(condalist)"
view raw conda.fish hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Or you can download it from https://gist.github.com/jiffyclub/9679788.

To use these, add them to the ~/.config/fish/ directory and source them from the end of the ~/.config/fish/config.fish file:

source $HOME/.config/fish/conda.fish
Using Conda Environments and the Fish Shell

4 thoughts on “Using Conda Environments and the Fish Shell

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