Is it possible to "embed" environment variables in global binaries (~/.pixi/bin) and environments?

[thekpaul]

I'm playing around with multiple versions of the same binary by separating them into different environments during pixi global install, and for extra distinction I would also like to set environment variables that would fire up by default for each binary without having to set them as shell aliases or type them in manually every time.

For example, I have different versions of Neovim installed, and for specific environments I would like to set specific NVIM_APPNAME environment variables to ensure that each version uses its own configuration and data directories.

I've tried to see if setting envs.[env-name].activation.env in the global manifest would work, but it didn't. Using the latest version of Pixi (v0.66.0):

Error:   × Failed to parse global manifest: ~/.pixi/manifests/pixi-global.toml
    ╭─[pixi-global.toml:8:1]
  7 │
  8 │ ╭─▶ [envs.nvim12]
  9 │ │   channels = ["conda-forge"]
 10 │ │   dependencies = { nvim = "*", python = "<3.14", pynvim = "*", tree-sitter-cli = "*" }
 11 │ ├─▶ exposed = { nvim12 = "nvim" }
    · ╰──── Unexpected keys, expected only 'channels', 'platform', 'dependencies', 'exposed', 'shortcuts'
 12 │
    ╰───

[ShreeChaturvedi]

Not via pixi-global.toml. That file only accepts channels, platform, dependencies, exposed, and shortcuts, which is why activation.env failed. [activation.env] exists only on workspace manifests (pixi.toml).

Exposed binaries already bake conda activation into ~/.pixi/bin/trampoline_configuration/nvim12.json under env. To add NVIM_APPNAME and have sync pick it up:

mkdir -p ~/.pixi/envs/nvim12/etc/conda/env_vars.d
printf '%s\n' '{"NVIM_APPNAME":"nvim12"}' > ~/.pixi/envs/nvim12/etc/conda/env_vars.d/nvim.json
pixi global sync

pixi global update or a reinstall rebuilds the prefix and deletes that file. A wrapper on PATH is the option that survives those commands. First-class env on [envs.*] would need a feature request.