Output formats

Unified lockfile

Conda lock's default output format is a unified multi-platform lockfile.

This is defined by a pydantic model conda_lock.lockfile.Lockfile

In order to explicitly use this format

conda-lock --kind lock

To install from one of these lockfiles

conda-lock install conda-lock.yml

For proper parsing the unified lockfile must have the proper .conda-lock.yml extension (e.g foo.conda-lock.yml)

Render

The unified lockfile can be rendered into the various other lockfile formats.

Generate both formats using

conda-lock render --kind explicit --kind env

Explicit lockfile

The legacy format that conda lock supports. This was the default format prior to conda-lock 1.0.

This format is understood natively by both conda and mamba. If your lock contains pip solved packages these can only be installed by conda-lock

conda-lock --kind explicit --platform

To install from this lockfile you can aither use conda/mamba directly

conda create --name YOURENV --file conda-linux-64.lock

or

conda-lock install --name YOURENV conda-linux-64.lock

Environment lockfile

This format is itself a conda environment.yml that can be installed by conda env create.

This format does have the drawback that using it will invoke a new solve unlike the explicit format.

To install from this lockfile you can aither use conda/mamba directly

conda env create --name YOURENV --file conda-linux-64.lock.yml

or

conda-lock install --name YOURENV conda-linux-64.lock.yml