Export and format interoperability

conda workspace export converts a workspace environment into any format registered through conda’s conda_environment_exporters plugin hook. The same exporter surface is available through conda export, so conda-workspaces does not need separate writers for each output format.

Added in version 0.4.0: conda workspace export plugs into conda’s conda_environment_exporters plugin hook, so every format reachable through conda export and anything registered by a third-party plugin such as conda-lockfiles is also reachable through conda workspace export. --from-lockfile and --from-prefix select alternative sources. --platform (repeatable) drives multi-platform exports for exporters that opt into multiplatform_export.

The built-in exporter choices include the environment-yaml / environment-json exporters, the conda-workspaces-lock-v1 exporter registered by conda-workspaces itself, the conda-toml / pixi-toml / pyproject-toml manifest exporters, and any third-party exporter such as conda-lockfiles’ rattler-lock-v6 the moment it is installed.

# Default: environment-yaml from the declared manifest (no install needed)
conda workspace export -e default --file exports/environment.yml

# environment.json, format auto-detected from the filename
conda workspace export -e default --file exports/environment.json

# Export the selected environment as a new conda.toml manifest
conda workspace export --format conda-toml --file exports/conda.toml

# Export the same flattened environment under [tool.conda]
conda workspace export --format pyproject-toml --file exports/pyproject.toml

# Re-emit exact package records from an existing conda.lock
conda workspace export --from-lockfile --format conda-workspaces-lock-v1 \
    --platform linux-64 --platform osx-arm64 --file exports/conda.lock

# Export environment.yml from an existing conda.lock
conda workspace export --from-lockfile --file exports/environment.yml

# Mirror ``conda export`` semantics on an installed prefix
conda workspace export --from-prefix --no-builds --from-history

# Select pixi.toml as the exact source and write somewhere else
conda workspace --file path/to/pixi.toml export \
    --file ../exports/environment.yml

The global --file before export selects the source manifest. The subcommand’s --file selects the export destination.

Three sources feed the exporter:

• Declared (default) resolves the declared specs from the manifest per platform. No solver, no installed environment required — this is what makes the command useful before the first conda workspace install.

• --from-lockfile reconstructs Environment objects from an existing conda.lock via the CondaLockLoader.

• --from-prefix reads the live installed prefix the same way conda export does, so --no-builds, --ignore-channels, and --from-history behave identically.

Use conda workspace lock when the goal is to solve the complete workspace and update its canonical conda.lock. Export does not run the solver.

--platform (repeatable) intersects declared or available platforms with the chosen subset. Passing multiple platforms requires an exporter that opts into multiplatform_export. The conda-workspaces-lock-v1, rattler-lock-v6, and the three manifest exporters (conda-toml, pixi-toml, pyproject-toml) do. The single-platform YAML and JSON exporters raise a clear error.

Manifest-format exporters

Added in version 0.4.0: Three new exporter plugins — conda-toml, pixi-toml, and pyproject-toml — write one selected environment in any manifest dialect conda-workspaces already reads.

The manifest exporters flatten one selected environment. They preserve its declared dependencies across the requested platforms, but do not preserve the source workspace’s named features, other environments, tasks, activation settings, or archive configuration. Write to a new file unless replacing that structure with a single flattened environment is intentional. Specs that appear on every requested platform land under the top-level [dependencies] / [pypi-dependencies] tables. Platform-specific deltas move under [target.<platform>.*]. The pyproject-toml exporter wraps the same content under [tool.conda], and when the target pyproject.toml already exists it splices the [tool.conda] subtree into the existing document so peer [project], [build-system], [tool.ruff], [tool.pixi], and friends survive untouched. Any existing [tool.conda] is replaced by the flattened selected environment. conda.toml and pixi.toml keep the default overwrite semantics of every other conda exporter.

Manifest exporters preserve representable conda source fields and named, credential-free PyPI direct URLs. They fail before writing when a PyPI marker, path source, VCS source, or malformed requirement cannot cross conda’s environment exporter interface without losing meaning. Keep those declarations in the source manifest, or replace them with a supported named direct URL or a target-specific dependency table.

When the export --file is passed without --format, the format is inferred from the output basename: conda.toml maps to conda-toml, pixi.toml maps to pixi-toml, pyproject.toml maps to pyproject-toml, environment.yml / environment.yaml maps to environment-yaml, environment.json maps to environment-json, and conda.lock maps to conda-workspaces-lock-v1.

See Format aliases for the full alias table.