Checklist

• I added a descriptive title
• I searched open requests and couldn't find a duplicate

What is the idea?

Currently, a new plugins mechanism is being developed which promises a cleaner way for external code to integrate with conda. One way external code will integrate with conda is in the form a new sub-commands.

The current way that this is being proposed does not easily allow for the integration of other CLI parsing libraries such as click. This feature request asks that this use case be fully supported. Plugin sub-command authors should be able to use what ever CLI parsing library they wish.

Why is this needed?

Plugin authors writing sub-commands will benefit from this in that they will not have to rely on the argument parsing done by conda itself. Instead, this responsibility will be passed on to the sub-command itself.

What should happen?

An implementation of this already exists in an incomplete form here: #11680

In order to for this issue to be completed, we need to finish that pull request.