HOW TO: Automate creation of conda environments

Do you:

• Always have to google how to create a new environment?
• Forget to activate the right environment?
• Forget the name of your conda environments?

Then these aliases for your .bashrc or .zshrc file might help.

function mkconda() {
    dir=$(echo $PWD | rev | cut -d/ -f1 | rev)
    conda create -n $1 -y python=3.7
    conda deactivate
    conda activate $1
}

This gives you the option to run mkconda and it will create a new conda environment with the same name as the current directory.

If you add:

function ca() {
    dir=$(echo $PWD | rev | cut -d/ -f1 | rev)
    conda deactivate
    conda activate ${dir}
}

Then you can use ca from your project root to easily activate the relevant conda environment. As a bonus if you often forget to activate the right environment then you can use aliases:

# Python aliases
alias jn="ca && jupyter notebook"
alias jl="ca && jupyter lab"
alias ip="ca && ipython"