Quickstart

Use this page when you want the shortest local path from an empty directory to a staged runtime artifact. It uses conda-workspaces. The full first-runtime tutorial also covers automatic first-run bootstrap and embedded builds.

Install The Builder

Create an environment with conda-workspaces, then install conda-ship from PyPI through conda:

conda install --name base -c conda-forge conda-pypi
conda create -n cs-demo -c conda-forge python pip conda-workspaces
conda activate cs-demo
conda pypi install conda-ship

If you prefer not to install conda-pypi into base, use python -m pip install conda-ship in the activated environment instead.

Check that the builder is available:

cs --version
conda workspace --help

Create A Runtime Project

Create a project and add the packages chosen for this conda runtime:

mkdir demo-runtime
cd demo-runtime
conda workspace init --format conda --name demo-runtime
conda workspace add --feature ship --no-lockfile-update \
  "python>=3.12" \
  "conda>=25.1" \
  conda-rattler-solver \
  "conda-spawn>=0.1.0"

Add conda-ship build policy:

cat >> conda.toml <<'TOML'

[tool.conda-ship]
runtime-name = "demo"
runtime-version = "0.1.0"
delegate-executable = "conda"
artifact-layout = "online"
source-environment = "ship"
exclude-packages = ["conda-libmamba-solver"]
TOML

Lock And Build

Solve the source lockfile, inspect the derived runtime package set, preview the build, and write the runtime artifact:

conda workspace lock
cs inspect
cs build --dry-run
cs build

The online runtime is staged at dist/demo on Unix and dist/demo.exe on Windows. Invoke the conda delegate. The first invocation automatically bootstraps the managed prefix before running conda info:

./dist/demo info

Next, follow the first runtime tutorial to use a temporary install path for smoke testing.