Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

How to configure `conda` to stop using `defaults` channels

Open
  • Is something wrong?
#59 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
48/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
anaconda
Domain
documentation

Research direction

Start by locating the repository's documentation entry point for Conda configuration; no specific file or test is named in the issue. Check the listed conda commands and ensure the documentation explains removing defaults, setting conda-forge, cleaning caches, and verifying the resulting configuration.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

By default, the defaults channel alias points to three sources at https://repo.anaconda.com, which are covered by the Anaconda, Inc., Terms of Service.

There is a good chance your configuration is using some or all of these channels. Here is how to fix that. Conda configuration is held in .condarc files at the user and folder levels (and possibly the system level, this is not commonly configured by default).

  1. Show default channels with conda config --show default_channels.
  2. Verify what channels are being used with conda config --show channels.
  3. Also try conda config --show-sources to know which .condarc files are configuring the channels.
  4. Use conda config --remove channels defaults to remove the defaults channel alias from your user-level config.
  5. Use conda config --append default_channels conda-forge. If that doesn't work, replace --append with --set.

At the end, when using conda config --show you should have no channels: key and you should have the following as part of your configuration.

default_channels:
  - conda-forge

Be sure to run conda clean --all --yes once, and pip cache purge in all relevant environments, including the base environment.

Dominant language
Python
Stars
1
Forks
9
No merged PRs in 30d

Getting set up

  • No Dockerfile or Docker Compose file
  • Has a pull request template
  • No contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from uabrc/devops-docs

All issues in uabrc/devops-docs

Similar issues

More Python issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.