You can simply git-clone the package repo to your local computer and then install it in “development” or “editable” mode. This way you can easily make changes to the code while at the same time incorporating it into your own projects. Of course, this will also allow you to create pull requests later on.

Using Anaconda (or Miniconda) you have 2 equivalent options for this:

1. using conda (conda-develop):

conda develop <path_to_local_repo>

2. using pip (pip install options)

pip install --editable <path_to_local_repo>

What these commands basically do is creating a link to the local repo-folder inside the environments site-packages folder.

Note that for “editable” pip installs you need a a basic setup.py:

import setuptools
setuptools.setup(name=<anything>)

On the other hand the conda develop <path_to_local_repo> command unfortunately doesn’t work in environment.yml files.