Enhance isolated conda installation to support conda init

Luke_Pinner

The corporate environment I work in has disabled cmd.exe and running of .bat & .cmd files as part of their IT Security policy and we are unable to install a separate miniconda.  We do have access to powershell and Visual Studio Code to run python scripts.

As of Pro 2.8, the isolated conda installation does not support conda init (ref.).  This means we can not activate conda envs in powershell or VS Code and therefore can't run scripts that use additional packages installed into clones (that rely on a properly activated environment).

Please enhance the ArcGIS Pro isolated conda installation to support conda init.

omdaniel

@Luke_Pinner I also work for an agency that disables cmd.exe. I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about this issue. My targeted conclusion is that “conda init” is the wrong approach to providing powershell integration. My recommendation is that ESRI should repurpose conda-hook.ps1 and Conda.psm1 (ships with Anacona/miniconda) and modify these scripts to work with conda build that comes with ArcGIS Pro. See this article from last year that talks about using the conda-hook.ps1 script to initialize conda and activate arcgispro-py3 environment (Setting up Windows Terminal to launch an ArcGIS Pro Python prompt - Nithiya Streethran). The procedure in the link also requires having the full Anaconda or miniconda installation alongside ArcGIS Pro and uses their conda-hook.ps1 to activate acrgispro-py3. I have adapted this solution to work with VS Code and I haven’t seen any other post about this solution. Adding the following to your user settings.json

 

    "terminal.integrated.profiles.windows": {
      "ArcGIS Pro": {
        "path": "powershell.exe",
        "args": ["-ExecutionPolicy","ByPass","-NoExit","-Command","& 'C:\\Program Files\\Anaconda3\\shell\\condabin\\conda-hook.ps1'"]
      }
    },
    "terminal.integrated.profiles.windows": {
      "Anaconda": {
        "path": "powershell.exe",
        "args": ["-ExecutionPolicy","ByPass","-NoExit","-Command","& 'C:\\Program Files\\Anaconda3\\shell\\condabin\\conda-hook.ps1'"]
      }
    },

 

Then for the individual project settings.json you can add…

 

"terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "ArcGIS Pro",

 

I find this approach to be better than “conda init” for several reasons: “conda init” makes every instance of powershell conda aware (which some may not want); it tethers powershell to the version of conda that ran “conda init” and this may cause issues if you are using both ArcGIS Pro and Anaconda.

If ESRI provides a script similar to conda-hook.ps1 / Conda.psm1  (ArcGIS Pro 3.0 please!) it would allow the end user to launch separate shells either tethered to the conda that comes with ArcGIS Pro or Anaconda and they wouldn’t mangle one another’s shell environment.