How is this Conda dependency conflict possible?

Question

I have a conflict while attempting a conda build:

Package python_abi conflicts for:
pyibis-ami[version='>=4.0.5'] -> click -> python_abi[version='3.10.*|3.8.*|3.11.*',build='*_cp311|*_cp310|*_cp38']
{snip}
pyibis-ami[version='>=4.0.5'] -> python_abi=3.9[build=*_cp39]

There's clearly a conflict: click doesn't support 3.9, but pyibis-ami demands it.

But, click is a dependency of pyibis-ami. And I just successfully built pyibis-ami, before attempting this build! (It's a direct dependency of the package I'm trying to build now.) So, how did I succeed at building pyibis-ami?! Why didn't the same conflict block that build?

Some additional sleuthing:

The pyibis-ami package does not call for any specific version of click.

Looking at what's available for the most recent version of click (8.1.3), I find:

• one noarch build w/ dependency: __unix,

• one noarch build w/ dependency: __win, and

• several osx-arm64 (the platform I'm working on) builds, all dependent upon a specific (different) Python minor version, for instance:

  dependencies:
    - python >=3.9,<3.10.0a0
    - python >=3.9,<3.10.0a0 *_cpython
    - python_abi 3.9.* *_cp39
  

  (There are similar builds for: 3.8, 3.10, and 3.11.)

Now, I'm giving the --python=3.9 option in my conda build ... command, but I have noticed cases in which Python v3.8 gets selected for the temporary build virtual environment, despite that --python=3.9 command line option. And I'm wondering if that's what's happening here.

Two questions:

1. Where can I find the log file for my last build attempt, in order to see which version of Python was actually selected for the conda build ... virtual environment?

2. What things are allowed to override the --python=3.9 command line option?