constructor is a tool which allows constructing an installer for a collection of conda packages. Basically, it creates an Anaconda-like installer consisting of conda packages. This tool was previously proprietary and known as cas-installer.

It is important that the constructor package is installed into the root conda environment (not to be confused with root user). The following command ensures that this happens:

$ conda install -n root constructor

Once installed, the constructor command will be available:

$ constructor -h

The constructor command takes an installer specification directory as its argument. This directory needs to contain a file construct.yaml, which specifies the name of the installer, the conda channels to pull packages from, the conda packages included in the installer etc. . The complete list of keys in this file can be found in CONSTRUCT.md. Also, the directory may contain some additional optional files (such as a license file, and image files for the Windows installer). An example is located in examples/maxiconda.