profiles/default

This is the typical ~/.conan/profiles/default file:

[build_requires]
[settings]
    os=Macos
    arch=x86_64
    compiler=apple-clang
    compiler.version=8.1
    compiler.libcxx=libc++
    build_type=Release
[options]
[env]

The settings defaults are the setting values used whenever you issue a conan install command over a conanfile in one of your projects. The initial values for these default settings are auto-detected the first time you run a conan command.

You can override the default settings using the -s parameter in conan install and conan info commands but when you specify a profile, conan install --profile gcc48, the default profile won’t be applied, unless you specify it with an include() statement:

my_clang_profile
 include(default)

 [settings]
 compiler=clang
 compiler.version=3.5
 compiler.libcxx=libstdc++11

 [env]
 CC=/usr/bin/clang
 CXX=/usr/bin/clang++

See also

Check the section Mastering conan/Profiles to read more about this feature.