https://prefix.dev/blog The latest articles from prefix.dev 2026-04-13T19:16:13.917Z Prefix.dev https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi-on-riscv 2026-04-02T00:00:00.000Z

As the RISC-V ecosystem matures from silicon to software, one piece has been missing: a modern, cross-platform package manager that makes it as easy to develop on RISC-V as on x86 or ARM. That changes today. Pixi now natively supports RISC-V (riscv64), bringing the full power of the conda ecosystem to open hardware.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/building-from-source-not-hard 2026-03-30T00:00:00.000Z

Pixi-build is being designed to make package building easy, reproducible and maybe even fun!

Ruben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/serverless-scientific-computing-how-notebook-link-scales-without-backends 2026-03-27T00:00:00.000Z

Notebook.link combines WebAssembly and the conda ecosystem to deliver scalable, serverless computing environments that run entirely in the browser. No backend. No scaling headaches. Just instant, collaborative scientific computing for everyone.

Sylvain Corlay https://prefix.dev/blog/whats-new-rattler-build 2026-03-19T00:00:00.000Z

We've introduced a modular API for Rust and Python, streamlined the debug CLI and upgraded our caching logic.

Julian HoferWolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/kubernetes-on-prefix-dev 2026-03-18T00:00:00.000Z

If you've ever spent 20 minutes debugging CI because helm was the wrong version, this post is for you.

Wolf VollprechtJulian Hofer https://prefix.dev/blog/octoconda-repackage-github-binary-releases 2026-03-10T00:00:00.000Z

Someone releases a great tool with perfectly working pre-built binaries on Github, but there's no Conda package. Octoconda helps out: It takes the release artifact and re-packages it for use in the Conda eco-system.

Tobias Hunger https://prefix.dev/blog/packaging-ai-ml-models-as-conda-packages 2026-02-27T00:00:00.000Z

Distribute AI models with trust and ease.

Ruben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/flickzeug-because-patching-source-code-is-hard 2026-02-12T00:00:00.000Z

TL;DR - we have extended the Rust crate diffy to be able to patch real-world source code with real-world patches, which is surprisingly hard! In the process we renamed it to flickzeug.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/seeking-reproducible-research-software-how-the-uw-scientific-software-engineering-center-adopted-pixi 2026-02-06T00:00:00.000Z

At the University of Washington Scientific Software Engineering Center (SSEC), our mission is to enhance our partners software development capabilities to bolster their research. In scientific research, reproducibility is the gold standard. The ability for another researcher to take your code, data, and environment to arrive at the exact same results is essential.

Anshul TambayDon Setiawan https://prefix.dev/blog/introducing-pixi-gui 2026-02-03T00:00:00.000Z

Hi, I’m Felix. I’m excited to share what I’ve been building over the past few months! Since last year I work as a working student at prefix.dev. As part of my bachelor's thesis, I designed and implemented a graphical user interface for the package manager Pixi, named Pixi GUI.

Felix Häcker https://prefix.dev/blog/aws-s3-support-in-our-tools 2025-11-24T00:00:00.000Z

We worked together with AWS Deadline Cloud to improve S3 support in our tools! Pixi and rattler-build now seamlessly authenticate using default credentials on your system, making it simple to upload, download and index packages on S3 buckets.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/building-your-own-build-backend 2025-11-19T00:00:00.000Z

Normally, development tooling and package publishing live in separate worlds: you use one workflow to build and test your software locally, and a completely different one to publish it. Wouldn't it be great to use the same manifest that describes your project environment to also define how the package is built, versioned, and released?

Valentin Kharin https://prefix.dev/blog/esoc-implementing-pixi-cli-extensions 2025-11-10T00:00:00.000Z

Hey there! I'm Swastik. I completed a 3-month internship at prefix.dev under the ESoC'25 (European Summer of Code) program, and this blog is all about my internship experience.

Swastik Patel https://prefix.dev/blog/reproducible-package-management-for-robotics 2025-10-24T00:00:00.000Z

Developing Robots is hard; Pixi makes it easier by creating reproducible, cross-platform ROS development environments without Docker or Ubuntu lock-in.

Ruben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/cross-compilation-in-the-conda-ecosystem 2025-10-14T00:00:00.000Z

Cross compiling is a fundamental capability in modern software development, allowing developers to build packages for different architectures without needing access to the target hardware.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/new-look-for-prefix-dev 2025-10-09T00:00:00.000Z

Since 2021 we've used the same identity and the website was mostly consistent, today we are transitioning to a new identity.

Tim de JagerWolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/using-pixi-as-a-system-package-manager-with-shortcuts-and-completions 2025-09-18T00:00:00.000Z

Pixi Global can be used for much more than just downloading and exposing CLI tools. In this blog post, we demonstrate two capabilities of pixi global which are core to making it a featureful and powerful system package manager: shortcuts, and (auto-)completions.

Lucas ColleyJulian Hofer https://prefix.dev/blog/what-are-mutex-packages-in-the-conda-ecosystem 2025-09-11T00:00:00.000Z

Mutex packages are a useful mechanism to guide the solver towards certain dependencies, mutually excluding other dependency trees.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi-build-for-cmake-projects 2025-09-05T00:00:00.000Z

Painless dependency management (including shared libraries), monorepos and CI/CD is here for C++/CMake projects with Pixi.

Ruben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/securing-the-conda-package-supply-chain-with-sigstore 2025-08-28T00:00:00.000Z

We're pleased to announce that sigstore support is now in public beta on prefix.dev! The Conda ecosystem can now use Sigstore to enhance the Software Supply Chain Security with cryptographic attestations.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/how-freecad-uses-pixi 2025-07-31T00:00:00.000Z

This is a guest blog post by Jackson Oursland - a FreeCAD maintainer and esteemed member of the conda-forge and Pixi community! FreeCAD uses Conda packages to build AppImages, DMG and Windows artifacts. Pixi greatly simplifies the developer workflow.

Jackson Oursland https://prefix.dev/blog/what-linking-means-when-installing-a-conda-package 2025-07-17T00:00:00.000Z

Package managers face a fundamental challenge: how to efficiently place files from a package cache into multiple environments without excessive disk usage or compromising isolation.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/virtual-packages-in-the-conda-ecosystem 2025-06-18T00:00:00.000Z

Virtual packages are a neat trick to inject system requirements into the SAT solver and resolve for compatible packages automatically. In this blog post we talk about how they are used in the Conda ecosystem to support complex cross-platform package distributions.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/what-is-a-conda-package 2025-06-11T00:00:00.000Z

At its core, a conda package really is just a "glorified" tarball—a compressed archive of files with some metadata attached.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/s3-support-in-the-conda-ecosystem-pixi-and-co 2025-06-02T00:00:00.000Z

We're excited to announce S3 support across our entire toolchain – rattler, pixi, and rattler-build now support the most common cloud storage standard, thanks to contributions from our friends at QuantCo. This vendor-agnostic approach to distributing Conda packages represents a major step forward for the ecosystem, offering teams the flexibility to host packages on any S3-compatible provider (AWS, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Hetzner, and more) with built-in authentication and minimal vendor lock-in.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/less-boilerplate-more-logic-parameterising-pixi-tasks 2025-04-30T00:00:00.000Z

Introducing powerful extensions to the existing task system

Parsa Bahrami https://prefix.dev/blog/ceps_2025 2025-03-21T14:37:00.000Z

We are working on some exciting Conda Enhancement Proposals (CEP) in 2025. Read more about them here.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/trusted_publishing_to_conda_channels 2024-12-12T15:12:00.000Z

Never forget your API keys again—with trusted publishing to prefix's channels

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi_global 2024-11-13T15:21:00.000Z

Think Homebrew, but cross-platform and easy to share with collaborators

Julian Hofer https://prefix.dev/blog/building_cpu_optimized_packages 2024-09-06T18:07:00.000Z

Did you know your packages could be even faster by enabling optimized CPU instructions? Learn how to build optimized packages for conda-forge.

Bas Zalmstra https://prefix.dev/blog/rattler_build_on_conda_forge 2024-08-15T15:31:00.000Z

rattler-build — the revolutionary build tool for the conda ecosystem (almost) available in conda-forge

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/towards_a_vendor_lock_in_free_conda_experience 2024-08-15T00:00:00.000Z

Why conda-forge is expected to remain free and open-source in the foreseeable future

Tim de JagerRuben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi_wasm 2024-07-30T00:00:00.000Z

Did you know that Conda packages can be built for WASM? Read more on how to build and use them with pixi!

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi_for_scientists 2024-06-08T00:00:00.000Z

As scientists, your focus should be on research, not wrestling with software environments. At this year's SciPy conference, we're excited to show Pixi.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/sharded_repodata 2024-05-28T00:00:00.000Z

Repodata fetching can be painfully slow. We propose an alternative method that can speed things up drastically.

Bas Zalmstra https://prefix.dev/blog/the_love_of_building_conda_packages 2024-05-08T00:00:00.000Z

Learn how to integrate rattler-build into the conda-forge ecosystem, covering the essentials of conda-build and rattler-build, and how to create modern conda packages.

Nichita Morcotilo https://prefix.dev/blog/using_python_projects_with_pixi 2024-04-27T00:00:00.000Z

pixi 0.18.0 ships with git, path and editable PyPI dependencies, improved PyPI <-> Conda mapping and experimental pyproject.toml support.

Tim de Jager https://prefix.dev/blog/introducing_multi_env_pixi 2024-03-18T00:00:00.000Z

Unleash the power of multiple environments — for the real power user.

Ruben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi_a_fast_conda_alternative 2024-03-01T00:00:00.000Z

Pixi is conda-compatible and comes with: more speed, lockfiles and tasks. It is the next-gen pacage manager for Python, R and more!

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/uv_in_pixi 2024-02-20T00:00:00.000Z

tl;dr we're integrating uv into pixi

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/building_a_cpp_package_with_rattler_build 2024-02-14T07:17:00.000Z

Conda packages are not only for Python! Learn how to build a C++ pacakge with conda-froge and rattler-build

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi_jupyter_notebooks 2024-02-14T00:00:00.000Z

Data scientists and researchers love to work with Jupyter Notebooks. Pixi makes it easy and more reproducible than ever!

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/rattler_build_a_new_parser 2024-01-12T07:21:00.000Z

We have rewritten the rattler-build recipe parser with great developer experience in mind.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/end_of_year_blog_2023 2024-01-02T00:00:00.000Z

Follow what we have created this year, and plan for the next year.

Ruben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/pypi_support_in_pixi 2023-11-29T00:00:00.000Z

We've deeply integrated PyPI packages into pixi.toml's — read more...

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/introducing_py-rattler 2023-10-25T00:00:00.000Z

Py-Rattler the Python partner to the blazingly fast rattler library.

Tarun Pratap Singh https://prefix.dev/blog/introducing_rip 2023-10-19T00:00:00.000Z

`rip` resolves and installs packages from PyPI from pure Rust

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/pixi_ros 2023-10-04T00:00:00.000Z

Learn why `pixi` and the conda ecosystem are perfect of robotics.

Ruben Arts https://prefix.dev/blog/launching_pixi 2023-08-16T00:00:00.000Z

Pixi is a new package manager for the conda ecosystem, written in Rust. It's fast multi-platform, and language-agnostic.

Tim de JagerWolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/the_new_rattler_resolver 2023-08-11T00:00:00.000Z

We wrote a new, fast SAT solver for conda packages in Rust – a port of the libsolv C library.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/packaging_con 2023-08-08T10:21:00.000Z

prefix.dev is going to be at PackagingCon 2023, the software packaging conference

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/how_we_implented_api_keys 2023-06-22T09:32:00.000Z

It's easy to overlook how important security is when implementing API keys

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/introducing_channels 2023-05-23T09:13:00.000Z

You can now host your own packages on prefix.dev

Tim de Jager https://prefix.dev/blog/the_new_rattler_build 2023-05-10T00:00:00.000Z

We are releasing a Rust based conda-build replacement that builds cross-platform binary packages much faster.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/repodata_patching 2023-04-25T16:36:00.000Z

Keeping packages in a large repository compatible over time is tricky. conda-forge has a highly useful mechanism for that: repodata-patching.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/introducing_rattler_conda_from_rust 2023-03-01T16:22:00.000Z

At prefix.dev we love Rust, but using conda/mamba from Rust is hard, so we started building Rattler, a set of crates that offer clean, compartmentalized building blocks for package management.

Bas Zalmstra https://prefix.dev/blog/online_environment_solving 2023-02-21T15:41:00.000Z

We've released our first version of online environment solving.

Tim de Jager https://prefix.dev/blog/the_python_packaging_debate 2023-02-15T15:02:00.000Z

A hot debate is happening in the Python packaging world – should you use upper bounds to constrain your dependencies or not? We think there must be a better way.

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/mamba_release_1_2 2023-01-19T15:33:00.000Z

We've released mamba 1.2 and here are all the improvements

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/launching_prefix 2022-11-08T15:29:00.000Z

We are excited to tell you more about what we are up to!

Wolf Vollprecht https://prefix.dev/blog/were_hiring 2022-10-01T23:59:00.000Z

We are hiring engineers to work on developer tools (C++, Rust), our platform (Rust, TypeScript, React) and conda-forge (Python, CI pipelines)...

Wolf Vollprecht