Setting up the wiseEnvironment#

Warning

This section has been simplified and only describes the procedure in Windows systems…

  • Make sure you have Anaconda available on your system.

    This project uses Conda to manage its dependencies and ensure a reproducible workflow.

    All required packages for data analysis and documentation are specified in the environment.yml file that you can download here.

  • Open the Anaconda Prompt or the Anaconda PowerShell

Important

If you’re using a remote desktop connection to the CWS, check if the wiseEnvironment already exists, using:

conda env list

As stated above, the wiseEnvironment includes Sphinx and some extensions needed to add specific functionality to the WISE documentation. It also includes several other Python packages for data analysis (which you don’t actually need if you’re just creating documentation). Anyway, if the environment already exists, use it.

  • Navigate to the root directory of the project where the environment.yml file was copied to:

    cd /d path/to/your/project

  • Run the following command to build the environment if it doesn’t already exist. This will download and install all the packages required for the project:

    conda env create -f environment.yml

  • This process may take a few minutes, depending on your internet connection and the number of packages being installed. Conda will handle all dependencies and ensure that the environment is set up correctly.

    Once the installation finishes, you need to activate the environment before running any scripts:

    conda activate wiseEnvironment

  • You should now see (wiseEnvironment) at the beginning of your terminal prompt.

Updating the environment#

If the project’s dependencies change and the environment.yml file is updated, you can refresh your local setup without recreating it from scratch by running:

conda env update -f environment.yml --prune

Where are environments created?#

By default, Conda looks at your envs_dirs configuration to decide where to put new environments. If you want them strictly in ~/.conda/envs (or whatever your prefered path is), you need to tell Conda that this path is your top priority.

conda config --prepend envs_dirs ~/.conda/envs

To make sure Conda heard you loud and clear, check your configuration:

conda config --show envs_dirs

The output should list ~/.conda/envs (or the full path equivalent) at the very top.