python - Jupyter notebook run all cells on open

Question

I have a Jupyter noteboook and I'm trying to set it up in a way so that all cells are ran automatically when the notebook is opened.

This behaviour is different from saved output for notebooks which contain widgets. Widgets only seem to get rendered for me when the cells containing them are run. Consider the following example:

from IPython.display import display
from IPython.html.widgets import IntSlider

w = IntSlider()
display(w)

The slider is not displayed until the cell is executed.

Is this something that can be accomplished through Notebook Metadata or configuration files?

EDIT: https://try.jupyter.org/ seems to be doing something like this: Notice that the notebooks are not running when you open the page and display output when they are opened.

EDIT2: Adding example.

Not sure I follow the argument: As far as I understand, the Python code is run on the server hosting the notebook. How can it execute something on the client side (apart from Javascript, which could be embedded in any site you visit)? — Markus Schanta
So then is OK if someone put os.system("rm -rf *") in the automatic running notebook? Is not OK for me, I use Linux desktop. If it is on server, and not as root, it will still delete files on server that someone may need or cause maintenance issue. I suppose if you use throwaway VMs it might be OK, and indeed the jupyter-based berkeley spark course was run that way (throwaway VM, not autorunning script). — Paul
note: there is such a thing as a "trusted" ipython notebook, marked from the command line with ipython trust filename.ipynb or a trust command in the website file menu. — Paul
Don't see how that would be different from someone manually entering os.system("rm -rf *") and running it. Both a notebook hosted on a server and a notebook hosted on a server that executes automatically can execute arbitrary code on the server. — Markus Schanta
I agree with @MarkusSchanta, this is not a valid argument not to answer this SO question: Either a user is not allowed to enter commands (or the notebook is not marked as "trusted" yet), or she is allowed to run arbitrary commands, and she can cause "harm" either interactively, or at a later stage, when auto-running the notebook. — ankostis

ankostis ankostis · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-09T17:17:43

Paste the snippet below in a normal(code) cell,
execute it (hit [Ctrl + Enter]), and
Save the notebook.

The next time you (re)load it, all cells will run and a checkpoint will be saved with their refreshed outputs.

%%html
<script>
    // AUTORUN ALL CELLS ON NOTEBOOK-LOAD!
    require(
        ['base/js/namespace', 'jquery'], 
        function(jupyter, $) {
            $(jupyter.events).on("kernel_ready.Kernel", function () {
                console.log("Auto-running all cells-below...");
                jupyter.actions.call('jupyter-notebook:run-all-cells-below');
                jupyter.actions.call('jupyter-notebook:save-notebook');
            });
        }
    );
</script>

Note that if you clear the output of the above cell, you have to repeat steps 2 and 3.

TIP

You may consider these more appropriate solutions for what you are probably trying to achieve:

Jupyer Thebe: embed code-snippets in static pages communicating with ipython-kernels backends.
nteract: Build Electron-based applications from notebooks.
Dashboards: The "official"efforts to allow to pre-configure a grid of notebook-cell outputs ("dashboards"), package and serve them as standalone web apps.

You can find a summary of the situation in this article.

Controversy

Similar questions has been asked before in other sites, but in this googlegroup thread, someone submitted a solution, and the group moderator erased it(!), obviously to preserve life on earth :-) So, be careful with it!

python - Jupyter notebook run all cells on open

3 Answers

TIP

Controversy