pixi-browse

An interactive terminal UI for browsing conda package metadata. Explore packages, versions, dependencies, and more from any conda channel — right from your terminal.

Features

• Browse packages from any conda channel (conda-forge, prefix.dev, etc.)
• Substring search to quickly filter through thousands of packages, as well as through a package's versions, dependencies and files
• Inspect versions grouped by platform with collapsible sections
• View detailed metadata including dependencies, license, checksums, build info, and timestamps
• Inspect package contents — file listings and about.json extracted directly from artifacts
• Spot repodata patches — diff an artifact's original index.json against the patched repodata served by the channel
• Verify Sigstore attestations — see who built a signed artifact, from which workflow and ref, and whether the signature binds to this exact file and channel
• Compare artifacts — metadata, dependencies, and file lists of two builds side by side, with optional file diffs
• Terminal hyperlinks to source repositories, maintainer GitHub profiles, and provenance commits
• Download artifacts directly to your working directory
• Vim-style keybindings for fast keyboard-driven navigation

Installation

From conda-forge

pixi global install pixi-browse
# or use without installation
pixi exec pixi-browse

From PyPI

uv tool install pixi-browse
# or use without installation
uvx pixi-browse

Optional: file diffs

Comparing two artifacts (C) can show a side-by-side diff of a file that differs between them. This uses textual-diff-view, which is AGPL-3.0 licensed and therefore not installed by default:

pixi global install 'pixi-browse[extras=diff]'
pixi exec -s 'pixi-browse[extras=diff]' pixi-browse

# or from PyPI
uv tool install 'pixi-browse[diff]'
uvx 'pixi-browse[diff]'

Without it, the Diff left / right action in the compare view asks for this package.

Optional: file types

The file action dialog always says whether a file is text or binary. With python-magic installed it also names the type the way file does, e.g. Python script or ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64. python-magic needs the native libmagic library, so it is not installed by default:

pixi global install 'pixi-browse[extras=filetype]'
pixi exec -s 'pixi-browse[extras=filetype]' pixi-browse

# or from PyPI
uv tool install 'pixi-browse[filetype]'
uvx 'pixi-browse[filetype]'

Pixi installs libmagic along with it. From PyPI the library has to be installed separately: brew install libmagic, apt install libmagic1, or, on Windows, a libmagic DLL and its magic database.

Without either, the dialog only says text or binary.

Usage

# Browse configured default channels (conda-forge if unset) across all platforms
pixi-browse

# Read a specific config file
pixi-browse --config ./config.toml

# Browse a different channel
pixi-browse -c https://prefix.dev/conda-forge

# Browse several channels at once
pixi-browse -c conda-forge -c bioconda

# Restrict to specific platforms
pixi-browse -p linux-64 -p osx-arm64

# Start with a MatchSpec query applied
pixi-browse -m "numpy >=2"

# Combine channel, platform, and MatchSpec filters
pixi-browse -c https://prefix.dev/conda-forge -p linux-64 -m "python >=3.13"

# Show version
pixi-browse --version

CLI Options

Configuration

Without --config, pixi-browse loads Pixi's default configuration locations through rattler, including shared rattler configuration. These include system configuration, the platform's user configuration directory (and XDG_CONFIG_HOME), and $PIXI_HOME/config.toml or ~/.pixi/config.toml. Later files override earlier ones; missing default files are skipped. --config <path> reads only that file and reports missing or invalid files.

default-channels = ["conda-forge", "bioconda"]

[mirrors]
"https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge" = ["https://prefix.dev/conda-forge"]

[repodata-config]
disable-sharded = true

The shared network client applies mirrors, S3 options, authentication, proxy, and TLS settings to repodata, package previews, and downloads. Repodata format settings (including per-channel overrides) and concurrency.downloads are applied to the gateway. Who-needs queries scan the full channel repodata, even when sharded repodata is enabled for browsing.

Explicit -c flags replace default-channels. If neither is set, pixi-browse uses conda-forge.

Keybindings

Navigation

App

Channel selector

c opens a dialog with the channels being browsed. The package list and the MatchSpec and who-needs queries run against all of them.

Attestations

Channels can publish Sigstore attestations for the packages they serve, in a sidecar next to the archive whose digest the repodata advertises. The Attestation tab of the metadata section reports what verifying one says: the signing identity (for GitHub Actions, the workflow file and the ref it ran on), the certificate issuer, when the signature was logged, and the channel the attestation was issued for. The tab label carries ✓ when a signature verified and ✗ when none did, so signedness can be read without opening the tab.

pixi-browse only reports; it never refuses to show a package. No publisher is required, and an attestation issued for a different channel than the one the artifact was fetched from — a mirror, say — is shown as a warning rather than treated as a rejection. Whether that is acceptable is yours to decide. An artifact whose channel advertises no attestations is reported as unsigned, which costs no request.

Verifying loads the Sigstore trusted root over the network the first time, so the tab is the one part of pixi-browse that is not satisfied by the channel alone. Package metadata and files render as soon as the archive is available; the attestation tab updates when those independent checks finish.

Development

This project is managed by pixi.

git clone https://github.com/pavelzw/pixi-browse
cd pixi-browse

pixi run pre-commit-install

Running Tests

pixi run test

The tests run the app against small offline conda channels (conda-forge, bioconda and skill-forge) made of real artifacts listed in tests/fixtures/channel_artifacts.toml. They are downloaded into the git-ignored tests/fixtures/channels/ directory on first use (or ahead of time with pixi run fetch-test-channel) and verified by SHA256, so later runs work offline. TUI screens are checked with pytest-textual-snapshot.

Attestations are verified against the trusted root embedded in rattler rather than the one its TUF repository serves, so the whole suite runs offline — no test reaches tuf-repo-cdn.sigstore.dev.

The app draws in ANSI colors, so the terminal palette alone decides how it looks. Every screen is therefore snapshotted twice from a single app run, with the two palettes pixi run demo records the demos with (rose-pine-moon and rose-pine-dawn), side by side as tests/__snapshots__/<module>/<test>.{dark,light}.svg.

After an intentional UI change, review snapshot_report.html and accept the new screenshots with:

pixi run snapshot-update

To review committed snapshot changes against main without rerunning the tests:

pixi run snapshot-report

Linting

pixi run pre-commit-run