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Get started with qmamba

This page helps you get started with the qmamba package manager in KDB-X.

This quickstart takes you through initializing qmamba, creating and activating an environment, and searching for, installing, and loading a KDB-X module. For an introduction to qmamba, see the overview.

Before you start

A few concepts are used extensively in the rest of this documentation. If you haven't already done so, get familiar with them first by reading the Concepts page.

Setup

  1. Start KDB-X and load the qmamba module:

    ~$ ~/qx/bin/q
KDB-X 5.0 2026.04.01 Copyright (C) 1993-2026 Kx Systems
l64/ 12()core 5925MB user localhost 127.0.1.1 NONEXPIRE  user@example.com COMMUNITY #0000000

Welcome to KDB-X Community Edition!
For Community support, please visit https://kx.com/slack
Tutorials can be found at https://github.com/KxSystems/tutorials
Ready to go beyond the Community Edition? Email preview@kx.com

q)qmamba:use `kx.qmamba

  2. On first use, qmamba creates the root prefix (called base) inside the KDB-X installation. It installs some basic packages into the root prefix, then tells you how to start q so that it picks these up:

    q)qmamba:use `kx.qmamba

This is the first time you have used qmamba, initialising.

Creating root prefix "/home/user/qx/root"

Installing libgcc, libstdcxx, openssl, libcurl, curl, libxml2 < 2.14 from conda-forge into root prefix "/home/user/qx/root"...
Done

Please exit q then start it with (set an alias):

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/user/qx/root/lib /home/user/qx/bin/q

    Doing this maximizes compatibility with other conda packages, including the KDB-X modules.

    Set up an alias for this q startup command. If you forget and load qmamba, it detects this and warns you.

Quick tour

  1. Restart q as suggested, load qmamba, and list the available environments as the example below shows. Initially, this shows only the base environment that qmamba created:

    ~$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/user/qx/root/lib /home/user/qx/bin/q
KDB-X 5.0 2026.04.01 Copyright (C) 1993-2026 Kx Systems
l64/ 12()core 5924MB user localhost 127.0.1.1 NONEXPIRE  user@example.com COMMUNITY #0000000

Welcome to KDB-X Community Edition!
For Community support, please visit https://kx.com/slack
Tutorials can be found at https://github.com/KxSystems/tutorials
Ready to go beyond the Community Edition? Email preview@kx.com

q)qmamba:use `kx.qmamba
q)qmamba.env.list[]
  Name  Active  Path
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  base  *       /home/user/qx/root

    Note

    If you have used other mamba or conda tools before, any environments created by them may also be listed.

  2. Create an environment called test. qmamba creates it under the root environment:

    q)qmamba.create "test"
Empty environment created at prefix: /home/user/qx/root/envs/test
q)qmamba.env.list[]
  Name  Active  Path
──────────────────────────────────────────────
  base  *       /home/user/qx/root
  test          /home/user/qx/root/envs/test

  3. Activate the test environment. qmamba applies subsequent operations to this environment by default. It also sets the KDB-X search path (.Q.m.SP) to look in this environment when loading a module.

    q)qmamba.activate "test"
Activated environment at prefix: /home/user/qx/root/envs/test
q)qmamba.env.list[]
  Name  Active  Path
──────────────────────────────────────────────
  base          /home/user/qx/root
  test  *       /home/user/qx/root/envs/test
q).Q.m.SP
"/home/user/qx/root/envs/test/q/mod"
"/home/user/qx/mod"

  4. Say you are looking for a protobuf integration. All KDB-X modules use the q- prefix, so you can limit the results by searching for packages matching q-*protobuf* in the kx channel:

    q)qmamba.search (`SPECS`CHANNEL`PRETTY)!(enlist "q-*protobuf*";enlist "kx";1)
Getting repodata from channels...

     q-kx-protobuf 2.0.0 hb0f4dca_0
────────────────────────────────────────

 Name            q-kx-protobuf
 Version         2.0.0
 Build           hb0f4dca_0
 Size            2822 kB
 License
 Subdir          linux-64
 File Name       q-kx-protobuf-2.0.0-hb0f4dca_0.conda
 URL             https://conda.anaconda.org/kx/linux-64/q-kx-protobuf-2.0.0-hb0f4dca_0.conda
 MD5             087c83e6a36eef3c8b6532c21c4f2133
 SHA256          d4200c7015c1fafd8fd1ed9ea706ae1e261a2a910f5b53f45949412342e7037a

 Dependencies:
  - libgcc >=15
  - libprotobuf 3.*
  - libstdcxx >=15
  - libprotobuf >=3.21.12,<3.22.0a0

  5. Install q-kx-protobuf. Since it has third-party dependencies such as libprotobuf, add conda-forge to the channel list. qmamba uses that to fetch these dependencies, with q-kx-protobuf coming from the kx channel.

    q)qmamba.install (`SPECS`CHANNEL)!(enlist "q-kx-protobuf";("kx";"conda-forge"))
conda-forge/noarch                                  26.8MB @   3.3MB/s  8.1s
conda-forge/linux-64                                54.9MB @   5.1MB/s 10.7s


Transaction

  Prefix: /home/user/qx/root/envs/test

  Updating specs:

   - q-kx-protobuf


  Package          Version  Build        Channel           Size
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Install:
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

  + _openmp_mutex      4.5  20_gnu       conda-forge     Cached
  + libgcc          15.2.0  he0feb66_19  conda-forge     Cached
  + libgcc-ng       15.2.0  h69a702a_19  conda-forge     Cached
  + libgomp         15.2.0  he0feb66_19  conda-forge     Cached
  + libprotobuf    3.21.12  hfc55251_2   conda-forge     Cached
  + libstdcxx       15.2.0  h934c35e_19  conda-forge     Cached
  + libstdcxx-ng    15.2.0  hdf11a46_19  conda-forge     Cached
  + libzlib          1.3.2  h25fd6f3_2   conda-forge     Cached
  + q-kx-protobuf    2.0.0  hb0f4dca_0   kx              Cached

  Summary:

  Install: 9 packages

  Total download: 0 B

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────


Confirm changes: [Y/n]
Y

Transaction starting
Linking libzlib-1.3.2-h25fd6f3_2
Linking libgomp-15.2.0-he0feb66_19
Linking _openmp_mutex-4.5-20_gnu
Linking libgcc-15.2.0-he0feb66_19
Linking libgcc-ng-15.2.0-h69a702a_19
Linking libstdcxx-15.2.0-h934c35e_19
Linking libstdcxx-ng-15.2.0-hdf11a46_19
Linking libprotobuf-3.21.12-hfc55251_2
Linking q-kx-protobuf-2.0.0-hb0f4dca_0

Transaction finished

  6. List the packages installed in the environment, which now contains q-kx-protobuf and its dependencies:

    q)qmamba.list[]
List of packages in environment: "/home/user/qx/root/envs/test"

  Name           Version  Build        Channel
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  _openmp_mutex  4.5      20_gnu       conda-forge
  libgcc         15.2.0   he0feb66_19  conda-forge
  libgcc-ng      15.2.0   h69a702a_19  conda-forge
  libgomp        15.2.0   he0feb66_19  conda-forge
  libprotobuf    3.21.12  hfc55251_2   conda-forge
  libstdcxx      15.2.0   h934c35e_19  conda-forge
  libstdcxx-ng   15.2.0   hdf11a46_19  conda-forge
  libzlib        1.3.2    h25fd6f3_2   conda-forge
  q-kx-protobuf  2.0.0    hb0f4dca_0   kx

  7. Load q-kx-protobuf and start using it:

    q)proto:use `kx.protobuf
q)proto.versionStr[]
"libprotobuf v3.21.12"
q)result:proto.serializeArrayFromList[`ScalarExample; (1i;2.2f;"abc")]
q)result
"\010\001\021\232\231\231\231\231\231\001@\032\003abc"
q)proto.parseArrayToList[`ScalarExample; result]
1i
2.2
"abc"

Next steps

Now that you have seen a demonstration of qmamba, read the qmamba usage guide to learn more.