jupyterlab/jupyterlab-git

jupyterlab-git

A JupyterLab extension for version control using Git

To see the extension in action, open the example notebook included in the Binder demo.

Requirements

• JupyterLab >= 4.0 ([older version] available for 2.x and 3.x)
• Git (version >=2.x)

For older versions of JupyterLab, go to:

• 3.x branch
• 2.x branch

Usage

• Open the Git extension from the Git tab on the left panel
• Set up authentication

Install

Note for users upgrading from a previous version: Starting with the split into jupyterlab-git-core and jupyterlab-git, the JupyterLab frontend extension (@jupyterlab/git) is now bundled in and owned by jupyterlab-git-core. Running pip install --upgrade jupyterlab-git will automatically install the correct version of jupyterlab-git-core.

With jupyter-server backend (standard)

The standard installation includes the Tornado/jupyter-server backend:

pip install --upgrade jupyterlab jupyterlab-git

or with conda:

conda install -c conda-forge jupyterlab jupyterlab-git

Without jupyter-server backend (jupyverse)

To use jupyterlab-git with jupyverse (FastAPI-based, no Tornado dependency), install the core package — it includes the frontend labextension but no Tornado/jupyter-server dependency. The backend routes are provided by the fps-jupyterlab-git jupyverse plugin:

pip install --upgrade jupyterlab-git-core
pip install --upgrade fps-jupyterlab-git

In this mode, jupyter_server and Tornado are not required.

Uninstall

With jupyter-server backend (standard)

To remove the extension, execute:

pip uninstall jupyterlab-git

or with conda:

conda remove jupyterlab-git

Without jupyter-server backend (jupyverse)

pip uninstall jupyterlab-git-core fps-jupyterlab-git

Settings

Authentication to remote repository hosts

If you are seeing errors similar to [E yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss ServerApp] 500 POST /git/<clone|push|pull|status> on the console which is running the JupyterLab server, you probably need to set up a credentials store for your local Git repository.

This extension tries to handle credentials for HTTP(S) connections (if you don't have set up a credential manager). But not for other SSH connections.

For Windows users, it is recommended to install git for windows. It will automatically set up a credential manager. In order to connect to a remote host, it is recommended to use SSH.

HTTP(S) protocol

The extension can cache temporarily (by default for an hour) credentials. To use the caching, you will need to check the option Save my login temporarily in the dialog asking your credentials.

You can set a longer cache timeout; see Server Settings.

This is a new feature since v0.37.0

SSH protocol

Here are the steps to follow to set up SSH authentication (skip any that is already accomplished for your project):

1. Create a SSH key
2. Register the public part of it to your Git server:
   • GitHub
   • GitLab
3. Optionally, if you have more than one key managed by your ssh agent: Create a config file for the ssh-agent
4. Tell your local Git repository to connect to remote via ssh

You should now be able to pull and push committed changes to and from your remote repository using the respective buttons on the top of the extension's panel.

UI Settings

Once installed, extension behavior can be modified via the following settings which can be set in JupyterLab's advanced settings editor:

• blockWhileCommandExecutes: suspend JupyterLab user interaction until Git commands (e.g., commit, pull, reset, revert) finish executing. Setting this to true helps mitigate potential race conditions leading to data loss, conflicts, and a broken Git history. Unless running a slow network, UI suspension should not interfere with standard workflows. Setting this to false allows for actions to trigger multiple concurrent Git actions.

• cancelPullMergeConflict: cancel pulling changes from a remote repository if there exists a merge conflict. If set to true, when fetching and integrating changes from a remote repository, a conflicting merge is canceled and the working tree left untouched.

• commitAndPush: Whether to trigger or not a push for each commit; default is false.

• disableBranchWithChanges: disable all branch operations, such as creating a new branch or switching to a different branch, when there are changed/staged files. When set to true, this setting guards against overwriting and/or losing uncommitted changes.

• displayStatus: display Git extension status updates in the JupyterLab status bar. If true, the extension displays status updates in the JupyterLab status bar, such as when pulling and pushing changes, switching branches, and polling for changes. Depending on the level of extension activity, some users may find the status updates distracting. In which case, setting this to false should reduce visual noise.

• fileClickAction: what happens when you click or double-click a file in the Git panel file list. One of:

  • "open-on-double" (default): double-click opens the file in an editor.
  • "diff-on-double": double-click opens a diff of the file (no-op when no diff is available).
  • "diff-on-single": single-click opens a diff (or the file itself when no diff is available, e.g. for untracked or remote-changed files).
  • "select-only": clicking only selects the file; no other action is triggered.

  This setting replaces the previous boolean doubleClickDiff. User settings using the old key are migrated automatically on load (doubleClickDiff: true → "diff-on-double").

• historyCount: number of commits shown in the history log, beginning with the most recent. Displaying a larger number of commits can lead to performance degradation, so use caution when modifying this setting.

• promptUserIdentity: Whether to prompt for user name and email on every commit.

• refreshIfHidden: whether to refresh even if the Git tab is hidden; default to false (i.e. refresh is turned off if the Git tab is hidden).

• refreshInterval: number of milliseconds between polling the file system for changes. In order to ensure that the UI correctly displays the current repository status, the extension must poll the file system for changes. Longer polling times increase the likelihood that the UI does not reflect the current status; however, longer polling times also incur less performance overhead.

• simpleStaging: enable a simplified concept of staging. When this setting is true, all files with changes are automatically staged. When we develop in JupyterLab, we often only care about what files have changed (in the broadest sense) and don't need to distinguish between "tracked" and "untracked" files. Accordingly, this setting allows us to simplify the visual presentation of changes, which is especially useful for those less acquainted with Git.

Server Settings

• JupyterLabGit.actions.post_init: Set post git init actions. It is possible to provide a list of commands to be executed in a folder after it is initialized as Git repository.
• JupyterLabGit.credential_helper: Git credential helper to set to cache the credentials. The default value is cache --timeout=3600 to cache the credentials for an hour. If you want to cache them for 10 hours, set cache --timeout=36000.
• JupyterLabGit.excluded_paths: Set path patterns to exclude from this extension. You can use wildcard and interrogation mark for respectively everything or any single character in the pattern.
• JupyterLabGit.git_command_timeout_s: Set the timeout for git operations. Defaults to 20 seconds.

c.JupyterLabGit.actions = {"post_init": ["touch dummy_init.dat"]}
c.JupyterLabGit.credential_helper = 'cache --timeout=3600'

{
  "JupyterLabGit": {
    "actions": {
      "post_init": ["touch dummy_init.dat"]
    },
    "credential_helper": "cache --timeout=3600"
  }
}

Troubleshoot

If you are seeing the frontend extension, but it is not working, check that the server extension is enabled:

jupyter server extension list

If the server extension is installed and enabled, but you are not seeing the frontend extension, check the frontend extension is installed:

jupyter labextension list

If they do not match or one is missing, please reinstall the package.

Contributing

If you would like to contribute to the project, please read our contributor documentation.

JupyterLab follows the official Jupyter Code of Conduct.

Development install

Note: You will need NodeJS to build the extension package.

The jlpm command is JupyterLab's pinned version of yarn that is installed with JupyterLab. You may use yarn or npm in lieu of jlpm below.

This is a monorepo with two Python packages: packages/core (pure Git logic + labextension) and packages/jupyterlab (Tornado/jupyter-server extension).

# Clone the repo to your local environment
git clone https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-git.git
# Change directory to the jupyterlab-git directory
cd jupyterlab-git
# Install both packages in development mode (recommended: uv)
uv sync
# or with pip
pip install -e "packages/core[dev]" -e "packages/jupyterlab[dev,test]"
pre-commit install
# Link your development version of the extension with JupyterLab
jupyter-builder develop packages/core --overwrite
# Server extension must be manually installed in develop mode
jupyter server extension enable jupyterlab_git
# Rebuild extension Typescript source after making changes
jlpm run build

You can watch the source directory and run JupyterLab at the same time in different terminals to watch for changes in the extension's source and automatically rebuild the extension.

# Watch the source directory in one terminal, automatically rebuilding when needed
jlpm run watch
# Run JupyterLab in another terminal
jupyter lab

With the watch command running, every saved change will immediately be built locally and available in your running JupyterLab. Refresh JupyterLab to load the change in your browser (you may need to wait several seconds for the extension to be rebuilt).

By default, the jlpm run build command generates the source maps for this extension to make it easier to debug using the browser dev tools. To also generate source maps for the JupyterLab core extensions, you can run the following command:

jupyter lab build --minimize=False

Development uninstall

# Server extension must be manually disabled in develop mode
jupyter server extension disable jupyterlab_git
pip uninstall jupyterlab-git jupyterlab-git-core

In development mode, you will also need to remove the symlink created by jupyter-builder develop command. To find its location, you can run jupyter labextension list to figure out where the labextensions folder is located. Then you can remove the symlink named @jupyterlab/git within that folder.

Testing the extension

Server tests

This extension is using Pytest for Python code testing.

Install test dependencies (needed only once):

pip install -e "packages/core[test]" -e "packages/jupyterlab[test]"
# Each time you install the Python package, you need to restore the front-end extension link
jupyter-builder develop packages/core --overwrite

To execute them, run:

# Core tests (no tornado/jupyter-server dependency)
pytest packages/core/tests/

# JupyterLab server extension tests
pytest packages/jupyterlab/tests/

Frontend tests

This extension is using Jest for JavaScript code testing.

To execute them, execute:

jlpm
jlpm test

Integration tests

This extension uses Playwright for the integration tests (aka user level tests). More precisely, the JupyterLab helper Galata is used to handle testing the extension in JupyterLab.

More information are provided within the ui-tests README.

Packaging the extension

See RELEASE

Contributors ✨

The Jupyter Git extension is part of Project Jupyter and is developed by an open community of contributors. To see who has been active recently, please look at the "Contributors" tab. Below we list the people and entities who contributed in different ways to the project (emoji key):

Amazon Web Services 🤝	Ashutosh Bondre 💻 👀	Athan 💻 👀 📆 🎨	Ben Asokanthan 💻	Bosco Chan 💻	Brian E. Granger 📆 🎨 🤔 🔍	Daman Arora 💻
Dat Quach 💻	Frédéric Collonval 🚧	Hana Zarea 💻 👀	Ian Hunt-Isaak 💻 👀	Jaipreet Singh 📆 👀 💻 🎨	Ji Zhang 💻 👀	Kentaro Lim 💻
Konstantin Taletskiy 💻 👀	Kostya Farber 💻	Linda Ngoc Nguyen 💻	Major League Hacking 🤝	Max Klein 💻 👀 📆 🎨 🚇	Michał Krassowski 💻 👀 🐛	Navinn Ravindaran 💻
Neelam Gehlot 💻 👀	Noah Stapp 💻 👀	Saul Shanabrook 💻 📆 👀 🚇	Shawn Esquivel 💻	Sheeza Aziz 💻	Sina Khalili 💻	The D. E. Shaw Group 🤝
Zeshan Fayyaz 💻	Zong Xun 💻	jupytercalpoly 🤝

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind are welcomed!

To add yourself, or someone else, to this list you can either use the bot (@all-contributors please add <username> for <contributions>) or the CLI (jlpm all-contributors add <username> <contributions>).

If you manually edit the .all-contributorsrc config file, run yarn run contributors:generate.