[FIXED] Is it possible to install spyder-kernels in a new anaconda virtual environment at its creation moment?

Issue

I've been struggling with Anaconda virtual environments and Spyder. I want to know if there's is a way to configure Anaconda so that whenever I create a new virtual environment, the spyder-kernel module is automatically installed in it. That would make easier to switch between virtual environments while using Spyder. I love Spyder but I'm thinking of moving to VSCode or PyCharm because of this.

I googled my question and found no useful answers.

Solution

Yes, this is possible and documented here.

In a conda prompt enter:

conda config --add create_default_packages package_name_1 package_name_2 

When later creating new environments, for example:

conda create -n new_env

the packages package_name_1 and package_name_2 will be automatically installed.

Note that this will also install all the dependencies of these packages, including python. If you want to have a specific version of one of these dependencies, just specify that when you create the environment.

Below is an example how to do automatically install spyder-kernels when creating new environments, and with the optional setting to specifying a python version and using conda-forge channel when creating a new environment.

First add spyder-kernels to the default package config (this is a one time config command, all environments created after this will install spyder-kernels) :

conda config --add create_default_packages spyder-kernels

Later, I create my environment (here I don't have to ask to install spyder-kernels):

conda create -n new_env -c conda-forge python=3.9 -y

With the (partial) output:

Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): done
Solving environment: done

## Package Plan ##

  environment location: path_to_environments\envs\new_env

  added / updated specs:
    - python=3.9
    - spyder-kernels

...

Answered By - rhkarls