Conda-like experience. How to?

[ubaldot]

In my workflow, I like to see environments as "toolboxes" that I use for different projects.
For example, I use the "toolbox" foo for projects A, B and C and "toolbox" bar for project X and Y.

However, pixi seems more project oriented, i.e. a pixi.toml is connected to a specific project/folder. For this reason, I like the conda approach to environments management.

However, with little work, I managed to recreate the same workflow with pixi as well by adding the following functions to my .bashrc.

However, I am wondering if there is a native way to get the same result with pixi (however, note that the last pixi-activate py314 does not work)

pixi-activate() {
  local name="$1"
  local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
  local env="$base/$name"
  if [[ -d "$env" && -f "$env/pixi.toml" ]]; then
    pixi shell --manifest-path "$env"
  else
    echo "No pixi environment named '$name' found in $base"
    return 1
  fi
}

pixi-list() {
  local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
  find "$base" -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d -exec test -f '{}/pixi.toml' \; -print | xargs -n1 basename 2>/dev/null
}


pixi-install() {
  if [[ $# -lt 1 ]]; then
    echo "Usage: pixi-install <package> [more packages...]"
    return 1
  fi

  if [[ -z "$PIXI_PROJECT_ROOT" ]]; then
    echo "❌ Not inside a pixi shell — cannot determine project root"
    return 1
  fi

  echo "📦 Installing into environment: ${PIXI_PROJECT_NAME:-$PIXI_PROJECT_ROOT}"
  pixi add --manifest-path "$PIXI_PROJECT_ROOT" "$@"
}

pixi-remove() {
  if [[ $# -lt 1 ]]; then
    echo "Usage: pixi-remove <package> [more packages...]"
    return 1
  fi

  if [[ -z "$PIXI_PROJECT_ROOT" ]]; then
    echo "❌ Not inside a pixi shell — cannot determine project root"
    return 1
  fi

  echo "🗑️ Removing from environment: ${PIXI_PROJECT_NAME:-$PIXI_PROJECT_ROOT}"
  pixi remove --manifest-path "$PIXI_PROJECT_ROOT" "$@"
}


pixi-create() {
  local name="$1"; shift
  local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
  local env_path="$base/$name"

  if [[ -z "$name" ]]; then
    echo "Usage: pixi-create <env-name> [packages...]"
    return 1
  fi

  if [[ -e "$env_path" ]]; then
    echo "❌ Environment '$name' already exists at $env_path"
    return 1
  fi

  echo "📁 Creating Pixi environment: $env_path"
  mkdir -p "$env_path"
  cd "$env_path" || return 1

  pixi init

  if [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; then
    pixi add "$@"
  fi

  echo "✅ Environment '$name' created at $env_path"
}

pixi-switch() {
  local name="$1"
  local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
  local env="$base/$name"

  if [[ -z "$name" ]]; then
    echo "Usage: pixi-switch <env-name>"
    return 1
  fi

  if [[ ! -d "$env" || ! -f "$env/pixi.toml" ]]; then
    echo "❌ Environment '$name' not found in $base"
    return 1
  fi

  echo "🔄 Switching to Pixi environment: $name"
  pixi shell --manifest-path "$env"
}

pixi-remove-env() {
  local name="$1"
  local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
  local env_path="$base/$name"

  if [[ -z "$name" ]]; then
    echo "Usage: pixi-remove-env <env-name>"
    return 1
  fi

  if [[ ! -d "$env_path" ]]; then
    echo "❌ No such Pixi environment: $env_path"
    return 1
  fi

  # Ask for confirmation
  read -p "⚠️ Are you sure you want to delete '$env_path'? [y/N] " confirm
  if [[ "$confirm" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
    rm -rf "$env_path"
    echo "🗑️ Removed Pixi environment: $env_path"
  else
    echo "❎ Aborted"
  fi
}


# pixi-activate py314

[HernandoR]

I don't think pixi is trying to have an aligned interface with conda. It's nice of you to share this scripts, would be easier for anyone try to use near cli interface

[ubaldot]

That is rather disappointing. I think pixi should accommodate both the use-cases.
Having a "toolbox" that serves N projects is desirable by many users I guess.
I'll stick to my scripts then.

However, why adding pixi-activate py314 at the end of the above .bashrc file won't work?

[HernandoR]

I guess you are trying to activate py314 env by default when activating new shell?

[ubaldot]

Yes. pixi shell --manifest-path "$env", where $env comes from the following:

local name="$1"
local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
local env="$base/$name"

The complete function that is called is the following:

pixi-activate() {
  local name="$1"
  local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
  local env="$base/$name"
  if [[ -d "$env" && -f "$env/pixi.toml" ]]; then
    pixi shell --manifest-path "$env"
  else
    echo "No pixi environment named '$name' found in $base"
    return 1
  fi
}

[HernandoR]

I'm not expert in shell, but i managed to find this page that may help this issue #issues-with-pixi-shell

Replace pixi-activate as follows should do the trick:

pixi-activate() {
  local name="$1"
  local base="$HOME/pixi-envs"
  local env="$base/$name"
  if [[ -d "$env" && -f "$env/pixi.toml" ]]; then
    eval "$(pixi shell-hook --manifest-path $env)"
  else
    echo "No pixi environment named '$name' found in $base"
    return 1
  fi
}

[ubaldot]

That worked! Thanks!