Investigate using conda yaml file for setting up environment

[laurejt]

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[laurejt]

TLDR: Conda's current yaml support for environment management is not a good fit for the current workflow (i.e., multiple requirements files for different situations).

Conda environments can be created, updated, and shared via yaml files. However, this generally only works with a single yaml file. There are generally two kinds of issues when using multiple files:

1. Updates lose track of pinned dependencies. Although the conda env update -f [env.yml] command can update the current environment according to a yaml file, pinned dependencies can be updated. The third-party tool conda-merge might be able to help, but it further complicates the workflow and may still not produce a working environment (see the second issue).

2. Conda and pip don't always play nice. The interactivity / interoperability of pip within conda environments has changed over the years, but the results are still mixed (see: [1], [2]. Generally, once packages have been installed using pip, it shouldn't be updated further using conda.

Anecdotally, I've generally had a great experience using yml files for conda environment creation/management. However, this only works when there's a single file, not multiple.