What is a channel?

A channel is a location where the platform looks for packages. In Anaconda Platform, channels are made available to a perimeter, and the packages they provide are governed by the policies applied to them.

For the general concept of a channel in conda, see What is a channel? This page describes how channels work within the platform.

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Why channels matter

Channels are how data scientists get access to packages, and how your organization keeps that access governed. Rather than pulling packages from arbitrary sources, workloads in a perimeter draw from the channels registered to it. This gives your teams a curated, security-reviewed set of packages to build on, and gives your organization a single place to control what those packages can be.

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How channels work in the platform

A perimeter’s channels come from two sources:

Secure channels

Channels from Anaconda’s curated repository, containing security-reviewed packages. Every perimeter receives a default set of secure channels.

External channels

Package sources that have no Anaconda channel behind them, such as conda-forge. An administrator registers external channels to the perimeter that should have access to them.

Because access follows the perimeter, every workload in a perimeter can use its channels, and no workload can use channels registered elsewhere.

Secure channels carry policies that filter which packages are actually available. A policy might exclude packages with known vulnerabilities, for example, so that data scientists can only install packages that meet your organization’s security requirements. Policies rely on Anaconda’s package security metadata, so they apply to secure channels rather than external channels. When the platform resolves packages for a workload, it draws from the perimeter’s channels with those policies already applied.

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Managing channels

For setting policies and registering external channels, see Channel governance. For browsing channels and inspecting their packages, see Packages.