Conda Backend

The conda backend installs command-line packages and their transitive dependencies from conda-forge or another Anaconda channel. It solves dependencies and downloads packages directly, so conda, mamba, and micromamba do not need to be installed.

Each package is installed into its own isolated conda prefix. When a package needs that prefix activated — it ships etc/conda/activate.d scripts, its prefix contains executables from its dependencies, or one of its commands is a script — mise starts its commands through a launcher that sets CONDA_PREFIX, makes the prefix's executable directories available, and applies the activation scripts. This lets a command use its packaged runtime dependencies without adding dependency commands to your interactive shell's PATH.

A package with none of those — a single-binary tool such as conda:ripgrep — has nothing to activate, so on Unix its commands are symlinked directly. They start without an extra shell process, and without CONDA_PREFIX or the prefix's executable directories being set for the command and whatever it spawns.

The code for this is inside the mise repository at ./src/backend/conda.rs.

Dependencies

No separate conda package manager is required. The selected packages must still support your operating system, architecture, and native runtime environment.

Usage

Install ruff in the current project and verify its executable:

mise use conda:ruff
mise exec -- ruff --version

This writes the following to mise.toml. Add -g for global configuration.

[tools]
"conda:ruff" = "latest"

Specifying a Version

List versions with mise ls-remote conda:ruff, then select one with mise use conda:ruff@VERSION. Replace VERSION with a listed release.

Using a Different Channel

The default channel is conda-forge. For a package published in your team's channel, replace these placeholders with its package and channel names:

[tools]
"conda:my-tool" = { version = "latest", channel = "my-team" }

The solver uses the selected channel for the package and its dependencies. The complete dependency set must be available there; this is not a multi-channel conda environment specification.

Platform Support

The conda backend automatically selects the appropriate package for your platform:

Platform	Conda Subdir
Linux x64	linux-64
Linux ARM64	linux-aarch64
macOS x64	osx-64
macOS ARM64	osx-arm64
Windows x64	win-64

The solver considers both the platform subdirectory and noarch. A noarch package may still depend on platform-specific packages, so it does not guarantee that an installation works on every host.

Settings

Set these with mise settings set [VARIABLE]=[VALUE] or by setting the environment variable listed.

conda.channel

• Type: string
• Env: MISE_CONDA_CHANNEL
• Default: conda-forge

Default conda channel when installing packages with the conda backend. Override per-package with conda:package[channel=bioconda].

The most common channels are:

• conda-forge - Community-maintained packages (default)
• bioconda - Bioinformatics packages
• nvidia - NVIDIA CUDA packages

Tool Options

The following tool-options are available for the conda backend—these go in [tools] in mise.toml.

channel

Override the conda channel for a specific package:

[tools]
"conda:my-tool" = { version = "latest", channel = "my-team" }

Common Channels

• conda-forge - Community-maintained packages (default)
• bioconda - Bioinformatics packages
• nvidia - NVIDIA CUDA packages

Limitations

• mise solves and installs transitive dependencies in an isolated prefix for each tool. It does not import or maintain a general-purpose environment.yml.
• Only commands belonging to the requested package are exposed to your shell. For a package that is started through a launcher, its dependencies' executables stay reachable from inside that command but never reach your shell.
• The solver uses one channel per tool. Packages from channels such as bioconda may require dependencies from another channel that this configuration cannot supply.
• Native requirements such as a compatible libc or GPU driver still belong to the host.

If a command cannot be found, check whether the requested package actually provides a CLI. If solving fails, check package availability, the selected channel, and the platform reported in the error before changing versions.