If you're reading this section, you're probably interested in contributing to JupyterLab. Welcome and thanks for your interest in contributing!
Please take a look at the Contributor documentation, familiarize yourself with using JupyterLab, and introduce yourself to the community (on the mailing list or discourse) and share what area of the project you are interested in working on. Please also see the Jupyter Community Guides.
We have labeled some issues as good first issue or help wanted that we believe are good examples of small, self-contained changes. We encourage those that are new to the code base to implement and/or ask questions about these issues.
If you believe you’ve found a security vulnerability in JupyterLab or any Jupyter project, please report it to [email protected]. If you prefer to encrypt your security reports, you can use this PGP public key.
For general documentation about contributing to Jupyter projects, see the Project Jupyter Contributor Documentation and Code of Conduct.
All source code is written in TypeScript. See the Style Guide.
All source code is formatted using prettier. When code is modified and committed, all staged files will be automatically formatted using pre-commit git hooks (with help from the lint-staged and husky libraries). The benefit of using a code formatter like prettier is that it removes the topic of code style from the conversation when reviewing pull requests, thereby speeding up the review process.
You may also use the prettier npm script (e.g. npm run prettier
or yarn prettier
or jlpm prettier
) to format the entire code base. We recommend
installing a prettier
extension for your code editor and configuring it to format your code with
a keyboard shortcut or automatically on save.
Generally, an issue should be opened describing a piece of proposed work and the issues it solves before a pull request is opened.
Opening an issue lets community members participate in the design discussion, makes others aware of work being done, and sets the stage for a fruitful community interaction. A pull request should reference the issue it is addressing. Once the pull request is merged, the issue related to it will also be closed. If there is additional discussion around implemementation the issue may be re-opened. Once 30 days have passed with no additional discussion, the lock bot will lock the issue. If additional discussion is desired, or if the pull request doesn't fully address the locked issue, please open a new issue referencing the locked issue.
Users without the commit rights to the JupyterLab repository can tag issues with
labels using the @meeseeksdev
bot. For example: To apply the label foo
and
bar baz
to an issue, comment @meeseeksdev tag foo "bar baz"
on the issue.
You can launch a binder with the latest JupyterLab master to test something (this may take a few minutes to load):
Building JupyterLab from its GitHub source code requires Node.js. The development version requires Node.js version 10+, as defined in the engines
specification in
dev_mode/package.json
.
If you use conda
, you can get it with:
conda install -c conda-forge 'nodejs'
If you use Homebrew on Mac OS X:
brew install node
You can also use the installer from the Node.js website.
To check which version of Node.js is installed:
node -v
JupyterLab requires Jupyter Notebook version 4.3 or later.
If you use conda
, you can install notebook using:
conda install -c conda-forge notebook
You may also want to install nb_conda_kernels
to have a kernel option for different conda environments
conda install -c conda-forge nb_conda_kernels
If you use pip
, you can install notebook using:
pip install notebook
Fork the JupyterLab repository.
Once you have installed the dependencies mentioned above, use the following steps:
git clone https://github.com/<your-github-username>/jupyterlab.git
cd jupyterlab
pip install -e .
jlpm install
jlpm run build # Build the dev mode assets (optional)
jlpm run build:core # Build the core mode assets (optional)
jupyter lab build # Build the app dir assets (optional)
Notes:
-
A few of the scripts will run "python". If your target python is called something else (such as "python3") then parts of the build will fail. You may wish to build in a conda environment, or make an alias.
-
Some of the packages used in the development environment require Python 3.0 or higher. If you encounter an
ImportError
during the installation, make sure Python 3.0+ is installed. Also, try using the Python 3.0+ version ofpip
orpip3 install -e .
command to install JupyterLab from the forked repository. -
The
jlpm
command is a JupyterLab-provided, locked version of the yarn package manager. If you haveyarn
installed already, you can use theyarn
command when developing, and it will use the local version ofyarn
injupyterlab/yarn.js
when run in the repository or a built application directory. -
If you decide to use the
jlpm
command and encounter thejlpm: command not found
error, try adding the user-levelbin
directory to yourPATH
environment variable. You already installedjlpm
along with JupyterLab in the previous command, butjlpm
might not be accessible due toPATH
environment variable related issues. If you are using a Unix derivative (FreeBSD, GNU / Linux, OS X), you can achieve this by usingexport PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
command. -
At times, it may be necessary to clean your local repo with the command
npm run clean:slate
. This will clean the repository, and re-install and rebuild. -
If
pip
gives aVersionConflict
error, it usually means that the installed version ofjupyterlab_server
is out of date. Runpip install --upgrade jupyterlab_server
to get the latest version. -
To install JupyterLab in isolation for a single conda/virtual environment, you can add the
--sys-prefix
flag to the extension activation above; this will tie the installation to thesys.prefix
location of your environment, without writing anything in your user-wide settings area (which are visible to all your envs): -
You can run
jlpm run build:dev:prod
to build more accurate sourcemaps that show the original Typescript code when debugging. However, it takes a bit longer to build the sources, so is used only to build for production by default.
If you are using a version of Jupyter Notebook earlier than 5.3, then you must also run the following command to enable the JupyterLab server extension:
jupyter serverextension enable --py --sys-prefix jupyterlab
For installation instructions to write documentation, please see Writing Documentation
Start JupyterLab in development mode:
jupyter lab --dev-mode
Development mode ensures that you are running the JavaScript assets that are built in the dev-installed Python package. Note that when running in dev mode, extensions will not be activated by default.
When running in dev mode, a red stripe will appear at the top of the page; this is to indicate running an unreleased version.
jlpm run build:test
jlpm test
You can run tests for an individual package by changing to the appropriate package folder:
cd packages/notebook
jlpm run build:test
jlpm test
We use jest
for all tests, so standard jest
workflows apply. Tests can be debugged in either
VSCode or Chrome. It can help to add an it.only
to a specific test when debugging. All of the
test*
scripts in each package accept jest
cli options.
To debug in VSCode, open a package folder in VSCode. We provide a launch configuration in each package folder.
In a terminal, run jlpm test:debug:watch
. In VSCode, select "Attach to Jest" from the
"Run" sidebar to begin debugging. See VSCode docs on debugging
for more details.
To debug in Chrome, run jlpm test:debug:watch
in the terminal.
Open Chrome and go to chrome://inspect/
. Select the remote device and begin debugging.
There are some helper functions in testutils
(which is a public npm package called @jupyterlab/testutils
) that are used by many of the tests.
For tests that rely on @jupyterlab/services
(starting kernels, interacting with files, etc.), there are two
options. If a simple interaction is needed, the Mock
namespace exposed by testutils
has a number of
mock implmentations (see testutils/src/mock.ts
). If a full server interaction is required,
use the JupyterServer
class.
We have a helper function called testEmission
to help with
writing tests that use Lumino
signals, as well as a framePromise
function
to get a Promise
for a requestAnimationFrame
. We sometimes have to set
a sentinel value inside a Promise
and then check that the sentinel was set if
we need a promise to run without blocking.
If you are making a change that might affect how long it takes to load JupyterLab in the browser, we recommend doing some performance testing using Lighthouse. It let's you easily compute a number of metrics, like page load time, for the site.
To use it, first build JupyterLab in dev mode:
jlpm run build:dev
Then, start JupyterLab using the dev build:
jupyter lab --dev --NotebookApp.token='' --no-browser
Now run Lighthouse against this local server and show the results:
jlpm run lighthouse --view
Lighthouse recommends using the system level comcast
tool to throttle your network connection
and emulate different scenarios. To use it, first install that tool using go
:
go get github.com/tylertreat/comcast
Then, before you run Lighthouse, enable the throttling (this requires sudo):
jlpm run lighthouse:throttling:start
This enables the "WIFI (good)" preset of comcast, which should emulate loading JupyterLab over a local network.
Then run the lighthouse tests:
jlpm run lighthouse [...]
Then disable the throttling after you are done:
jlpm run lighthouse:throttling:stop
Performance results are usually only useful in comparison to other results. For that reason, we have included a comparison script that can take two lighthouse results and show the changes between them.
Let's say we want to compare the results of the production build of JupyterLab with the normal build. The production build minifies all the JavaScript, so should load a bit faster.
First, we build JupyterLab normally, start it up, profile it and save the results:
jlpm build:dev
jupyter lab --dev --NotebookApp.token='' --no-browser
# in new window
jlpm run lighthouse --output json --output-path normal.json
Then rebuild with the production build and retest:
jlpm run build:dev:prod
jupyter lab --dev --NotebookApp.token='' --no-browser
# in new window
jlpm run lighthouse --output json --output-path prod.json
Now we can use compare the two outputs:
jlpm run lighthouse:compare normal.json prod.json
This gives us a report of the relative differences between the audits in the two reports:
normal.json
->prod.json
First Contentful Paint
- -62% Δ
- 1.9 s -> 0.7 s
- First Contentful Paint marks the time at which the first text or image is painted. Learn more.
First Meaningful Paint
- -50% Δ
- 2.5 s -> 1.3 s
- First Meaningful Paint measures when the primary content of a page is visible. Learn more.
Speed Index
- -48% Δ
- 2.6 s -> 1.3 s
- Speed Index shows how quickly the contents of a page are visibly populated. Learn more.
Estimated Input Latency
- 0% Δ
- 20 ms -> 20 ms
- Estimated Input Latency is an estimate of how long your app takes to respond to user input, in milliseconds, during the busiest 5s window of page load. If your latency is higher than 50 ms, users may perceive your app as laggy. Learn more.
Max Potential First Input Delay
- 9% Δ
- 200 ms -> 210 ms
- The maximum potential First Input Delay that your users could experience is the duration, in milliseconds, of the longest task. Learn more.
First CPU Idle
- -50% Δ
- 2.5 s -> 1.3 s
- First CPU Idle marks the first time at which the page's main thread is quiet enough to handle input. Learn more.
Time to Interactive
- -52% Δ
- 2.5 s -> 1.2 s
- Time to interactive is the amount of time it takes for the page to become fully interactive. Learn more.
Avoid multiple page redirects
- -2% Δ
- Potential savings of 10 ms -> Potential savings of 10 ms
- Redirects introduce additional delays before the page can be loaded. Learn more.
Minimize main-thread work
- -54% Δ
- 2.1 s -> 1.0 s
- Consider reducing the time spent parsing, compiling and executing JS. You may find delivering smaller JS payloads helps with this.
JavaScript execution time
- -49% Δ
- 1.1 s -> 0.6 s
- Consider reducing the time spent parsing, compiling, and executing JS. You may find delivering smaller JS payloads helps with this. Learn more.
Preload key requests
- -100% Δ
- Potential savings of 240 ms ->
- Consider using to prioritize fetching resources that are currently requested later in page load. Learn more.
Uses efficient cache policy on static assets
- 0% Δ
- 1 resource found -> 1 resource found
- A long cache lifetime can speed up repeat visits to your page. Learn more.
Avoid enormous network payloads
- -86% Δ
- Total size was 30,131 KB -> Total size was 4,294 KB
- Large network payloads cost users real money and are highly correlated with long load times. Learn more.
Minify JavaScript
- -100% Δ
- Potential savings of 23,041 KB ->
- Minifying JavaScript files can reduce payload sizes and script parse time. Learn more.
Enable text compression
- -86% Δ
- Potential savings of 23,088 KB -> Potential savings of 3,112 KB
- Text-based resources should be served with compression (gzip, deflate or brotli) to minimize total network bytes. Learn more.
Avoid an excessive DOM size
- 0% Δ
- 1,268 elements -> 1,268 elements
- Browser engineers recommend pages contain fewer than ~1,500 DOM elements. The sweet spot is a tree depth < 32 elements and fewer than 60 children/parent element. A large DOM can increase memory usage, cause longer style calculations, and produce costly layout reflows. Learn more.
To install and build the examples in the examples
directory:
jlpm run build:examples
To run a specific example, change to the examples directory (i.e.
examples/filebrowser
) and enter:
python main.py
All methods of building JupyterLab produce source maps. The source maps
should be available in the source files view of your browser's development
tools under the webpack://
header.
When running JupyterLab normally, expand the ~
header to see the source maps for individual packages.
When running in --dev-mode
, the core packages are available under
packages/
, while the third party libraries are available under ~
.
Note: it is recommended to use jupyter lab --watch --dev-mode
while
debugging.
When running a test, the packages will be available at the top level
(e.g. application/src
), and the current set of test files available under
/src
. Note: it is recommended to use jlpm run watch
in the test folder
while debugging test options. See above for more info.
The JupyterLab application is made up of two major parts:
- an npm package
- a Jupyter server extension (Python package)
Each part is named jupyterlab
. The developer tutorial documentation
provides additional architecture information.
The repository consists of many npm packages that are managed using the lerna
build tool. The npm package source files are in the packages/
subdirectory.
git clone https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab.git
cd jupyterlab
pip install -e .
jlpm
jlpm run build:packages
Rebuild
jlpm run clean
jlpm run build:packages
Documentation is written in Markdown and reStructuredText. In particular, the documentation on our Read the Docs page is written in reStructuredText. To ensure that the Read the Docs page builds, you'll need to install the documentation dependencies with conda
. These dependencies are located in docs/environment.yml
. You can install the dependencies for building the documentation by creating a new conda environment:
conda env create -f docs/environment.yml
Alternatively, you can install the documentation dependencies in an existing environment using the following command:
conda env update -n <ENVIRONMENT> -f docs/environment.yml
The Developer Documentation includes a guide to writing documentation including writing style, naming conventions, keyboard shortcuts, and screenshots.
To test the docs run:
py.test --check-links -k .md . || py.test --check-links -k .md --lf .
The Read the Docs pages can be built using make
:
cd docs
make html
Or with jlpm
:
jlpm run docs
The Jupyter server extension source files are in the jupyterlab/
subdirectory. To use this extension, make sure the Jupyter Notebook server
version 4.3 or later is installed.
When you make a change to JupyterLab npm package source files, run:
jlpm run build
to build the changes, and then refresh your browser to see the changes.
To have the system build after each source file change, run:
jupyter lab --dev-mode --watch
There is a range of build utilities for maintaining the repository.
To get a suggested version for a library use jlpm run get:dependency foo
.
To update the version of a library across the repo use jlpm run update:dependency foo ^latest
.
To remove an unwanted dependency use jlpm run remove:dependency foo
.
The key utility is jlpm run integrity
, which ensures the integrity of
the packages in the repo. It will:
- Ensure the core package version dependencies match everywhere.
- Ensure imported packages match dependencies.
- Ensure a consistent version of all packages.
- Manage the meta package.
The packages/metapackage
package is used to build all of the TypeScript
in the repository at once, instead of 50+ individual builds.
The integrity script also allows you to automatically add a dependency for
a package by importing from it in the TypeScript file, and then running:
jlpm run integrity
from the repo root.
We also have scripts for creating and removing packages in packages/
,
jlpm run create:package
and jlpm run remove:package
. When creating a package,
if it is meant to be included in the core bundle, add the jupyterlab: { coreDependency: true }
metadata to the package.json
. Packages with extension
or mimeExtension
metadata
are considered to be a core dependency unless they are explicitly marked otherwise.
If you want to make changes to one of JupyterLab's external packages (for example, Lumino) and test them out against your copy of JupyterLab, you can easily do so using the link
command:
- Make your changes and then build the external package
- Register a link to the modified external package
- navigate to the external package dir and run
jlpm link
- navigate to the external package dir and run
- Link JupyterLab to modded package
- navigate to top level of your JupyterLab repo, then run
jlpm link "<package-of-interest>"
- navigate to top level of your JupyterLab repo, then run
You can then (re)build JupyterLab (eg jlpm run build
) and your changes should be picked up by the build.
To restore JupyterLab to its original state, you use the unlink
command:
- Unlink JupyterLab and modded package
- navigate to top level of your JupyterLab repo, then run
jlpm unlink "<package-of-interest>"
- navigate to top level of your JupyterLab repo, then run
- Reinstall original version of the external package in JupyterLab
- run
jlpm install --check-files
- run
You can then (re)build JupyterLab and everything should be back to default.
If you're working on an external project with more than one package, you'll probably have to link in your copies of every package in the project, including those you made no changes to. Failing to do so may cause issues relating to duplication of shared state.
Specifically, when working with Lumino, you'll probably have to link your copy of the "@lumino/messaging"
package (in addition to whatever packages you actually made changes to). This is due to potential duplication of objects contained in the MessageLoop
namespace provided by the messaging
package.
-
By default, the application will load from the JupyterLab staging directory (default is
<sys-prefix>/share/jupyter/lab/build
. If you wish to run the core application in<git root>/jupyterlab/build
, runjupyter lab --core-mode
. This is the core application that will be shipped. -
If working with extensions, see the extension documentation on https://jupyterlab.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html.
-
The npm modules are fully compatible with Node/Babel/ES6/ES5. Simply omit the type declarations when using a language other than TypeScript.
-
For more information, read the documentation.