Add %mamba magic to install packages in current kernel

[dshean]

          If you wish, you could define a `%mamba` magic similarly to how `%pip` and `%conda` are defined in #11524

Originally posted by @jakevdp in #9517 (comment)

[dshean]

This issue continues to come up for hub deployments with more complex environments. Just wanted to resurface a feature request for a %mamba magic.

[lizeidsness]

I wondered that too. This worked as a workaround:

%alias mamba conda
%mamba env list

[fecet]

A mamba magic would be great but what's the problem of just using !mamba?

[mjkanji]

A mamba magic would be great but what's the problem of just using !mamba?

According to the creator of IPython, directly calling the shell can result in unexpected behaviour with respect to which environment the packages are actually installed in. And see this SO post with more links/details.

[fecet]

A mamba magic would be great but what's the problem of just using !mamba?

According to the creator of IPython, directly calling the shell can result in unexpected behaviour with respect to which environment the packages are actually installed in. And see this SO post with more links/details.

I think this was caused by the PATH environment is according to that one you open notebook instead of kernel, but that can be configured by kernelspec, I have a snippet for that:

    python -m ipykernel install --user --name $CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV --display-name "Python $(python-version) ($CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV)"
    json_file="$HOME/.local/share/jupyter/kernels/$CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV/kernel.json"
    # jq '. + {env: {PATH: env.PATH}}' $json_file > $json_file
    cat <<< $(jq '. + {env: {PATH: env.PATH}}' $json_file) > $json_file

I would like to crate a PR to add mamba magic but I doubt whether it will be accepted because there is a simple workaround (like this).

[dshean]

OK! I think there is still value in a PR for %mamba, which is simpler than the workaround you mention. The average new jupyter/ipython user won't understand nuances here.

[dshean]

Thanks @lizeidsness, though I'm not sure #14075 (comment) solves the underlying issue, as this should just run conda, not mamba, which offers improved performance over conda, esp for more complex environments.

[mjkanji]

While we are considering this, it would also be great to have support for a %micromamba magic, which is a smaller, pure C++ implementation of mamba, that's also independent of conda (i.e., you don't need conda installed in your environment at all).

I do realize, though, that at some point, you just have to say no to these requests. Not to mention, the folks behind mamba and micromamba are now making yet another package manager called pixi: [ 1 ][ 2 ]

[lizeidsness]

@dshean

Thanks @lizeidsness, though I'm not sure #14075 (comment) solves the underlying issue, as this should just run conda, not mamba, which offers improved performance over conda, esp for more complex environments.

Noted - but was meant as a temporary workaround until it was maybe implemented.

[tsnow03]

%conda has become too cumbersome for certain installs. Switching to !mamba, but I hope that %mamba gets implemented at some point.