Creating notebooks (Watson Studio)

Creating a notebook file in the notebook editor

To create a notebook file in the notebook editor:

1. From your project, click New asset > Jupyter notebook editor.

2. On the New Notebook page, specify the method to use to create your notebook. You can create a blank notebook, upload a notebook file from your file system, or upload a notebook file from a URL:

   • The notebook file you select to upload must follow these requirements:
     • The file type must be .ipynb.
     • The file name must not exceed 255 characters.
     • The file name must not contain these characters: < > : ” / | ( ) ?
   • The URL must be a public URL that is shareable and doesn't require authentication.
     

3. Specify the runtime environment for the language you want to use (Python or R). You can select a provided environment template or an environment template which you created and configured under Templates on the Environments page on the Manage tab of your project. For more information on environments, see Notebook environments.

4. Click Create Notebook. The notebook opens in edit mode.

   Note that the time that it takes to create a new notebook or to open an existing one for editing might vary. If no runtime container is available, a container needs to be created and only after it is available, the Jupyter notebook user interface can be loaded. The time it takes to create a container depends on the cluster load and size. Once a runtime container exists, subsequent calls to open notebooks will be significantly faster.

   The opened notebook is locked by you. For more information, see Locking and unlocking notebooks.

5. Tell the service to trust your notebook content and execute all cells.

   When a new notebook is opened in edit mode, the notebook is considered to be untrusted by the Jupyter service by default. When you run an untrusted notebook, content deemed untrusted will not be executed. Untrusted content includes any Javascript, HTML or Javascript in Markdown cells or in any output cells that you did not generate.

   1. Click Not Trusted in the upper right corner of the notebook.
   2. Click Trust to execute all cells.

Locking and unlocking notebooks

If you open a notebook in edit mode, this notebook is locked by you. While you hold the lock, only you can make changes to the notebook. All other projects users will see the lock icon on the notebook. Only project administrators are able to unlock a locked notebook and open it in edit mode.

When you close the notebook, the lock is released and another user can select to open the notebook in edit mode. Note that you must close the notebook while the runtime environment is still active. The notebook lock can't be released for you if the runtime was stopped or is in idle state. If the notebook lock is not released for you, you can unlock the notebook from the project's Assets page. Locking the file avoids possible merge conflicts that might be caused by competing changes to the file.

Finding your notebooks

You can find and open notebooks from the Assets page of the project.

You can open a notebook in view or edit mode. When you open a notebook in view mode, you can't change or run the notebook. You can only change or run a notebook when it is opened in edit mode and started in an environment.

You can open a notebook by:

• Clicking the notebook. This opens the notebook in view mode. To then open the notebook in edit mode, click the pencil icon () on the notebook toolbar. This starts the environment associated with the notebook.
• Expanding the three vertical dots on the right of the notebook entry, and selecting View or Edit.

Next step

• Code and run notebooks

Learn more

• Create a notebook in JupyterLab
• Use Watson Studio extension for Visual Studio Code for notebooks created in VS Code
• Provided CPU runtime environments
• Provided Spark environments
• Change the environment runtime used by a notebook

See Sample notebooks for additional sample notebooks.

Parent topic: Jupyter Notebook editor