Thebe (In-Browser Execution)

Thebe (In-Browser Execution)#

Thebe turns a static HTML page into a lightweight interactive notebook: code cells become executable in the browser by connecting to a live Jupyter kernel backend (most commonly Binder or a JupyterHub).

This is optional. The default workflow for this book is still:

  • open the notebooks in VS Code

  • run them locally

When Thebe Works (And When It Doesn’t)#

Thebe requires:

  • a publicly reachable kernel backend (Binder/JupyterHub)

  • a repository that Binder can build (needs a Python environment specification)

If the kernel cannot start, the page remains readable and you can fall back to local execution.

Config Knobs (Jupyter Book)#

This book uses:

  • launch_buttons.thebe in book/_config.yml to toggle Thebe

  • repository.url to tell Binder which repo to build

If you fork this project, update repository.url to your fork.

Binder Environment (Minimal)#

Binder needs one of the standard environment files in the repository root, for example:

  • requirements.txt

  • environment.yml

  • pyproject.toml

For this book, a minimal requirements.txt typically includes:

  • ipywidgets (optional, for widget mode)

Everything else used in the core chapters is standard library Python.

Local Fallback#

If Thebe is unavailable, run locally:

jupyter-book build book --all

Then open book/notebooks/*.ipynb in VS Code and execute the cells.

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