I needed to create a copy of my current python 3.11 environment but with python 3.10.

trying

conda install python=3.10

resulted in conda telling me that it couldn't figure stuff out because python_abi and thing dependent on it were the problem.

So...

steps needed:

conda create --name py-3.10 --clone py-3.11
conda activate py-3.10
conda remove python_abi  <--- this was the blocker stopping me
conda install python=3.10
conda install python_abi keyboard levenshtein

When I removed python_abi it warned me that the packages keyboard and levenshtein would be removed, so the last step that adds the python_abi back had to add these back too.

It's better than having to reload ALL of your packages