nbcomet
nbcomet is a Jupyter Notebook extension that tracks Notebook history. It consists of both a server side extension (python) and a client-side nbextenion (javascript). Both must be installed for the tracking to work properly.
Installation
1. Install python package
For your convenience, nbcomet's server and nbextenion are contained in a single python package that can be installed with pip. Simply run the following command in your terminal:
pip install nbcomet
2. Configure server extension
While nbcomet is now installed, you need to tell Jupyter to use it. First, enable the server extension
jupyter serverextension enable --py nbcomet
3. Configure NBExtension
Next, you will need to install and enable the nbextension component of nbcomet:
jupyter nbextension install --py nbcomet
jupyter nbextension enable --py nbcomet
4. Check installation
You may check that nbcomet installed correctly by running the following commands:
jupyter serverextension list
jupyter nbextension list
5. Optional: Configure Data Directory
By default, Comet with store its data in ~/.jupyter/nbcomet; You can change
this parameter by editing the notebook.json configuration file in your
~/.jupyter/nbconfig folder to include a line specifying your data directory.
For example: "Comet": {"data_directory": "/full/path/to/directory" }.
What Comet Tracks
Comet tracks how your notebook changes over time. It does so by:
- tracking the occurrence of actions such as creating, deleting, moving, or executing cells
- tracking how your notebook changes as a result of these actions
Comet tracks this information in three ways:
- committing every notebook change to a local git repository
- periodically saving a full version of the notebook
- saving the name and time of every action to an sqlite database
Comet is a research tool designed to help scientists in human-computer interaction better understand how people use Jupyter Notebooks. It is primarily a recording tool with limited support for visualizing or reviewing the recorded data.
