How to assume all Jupyter Book's MyST files with code cells are jupytext without frontmatter

[ketozhang]

I have many notes that have executable content. I do not want to this long frontmatter to all of them:

---
jupytext:
  formats: md:myst
  text_representation:
    extension: .md
    format_name: myst
kernelspec:
  display_name: Python 3
  language: python
  name: python3
---

Is there a shorter way to mark executable documents or a config to assume all markdown files are executable MyST markdown?

[agoose77]

Hi @ketozhang,

My answer here is not the definitive answer; it's a personal opinion that I hope reflects the wider ethos of our collaboration.

In MyST / JB, we're trying to capture as much information about reproducibility as possible. I think it's important that a floating Markdown file can at least contain enough information about how to execute it, even if that's just a string that requires additional context in myst.yml or _config.yml to interpret.

The important information is not so much "this is executable", but rather "this file uses kernel". In Jupyter Book 2 / MyST-MD, we're thinking about wider execution improvements such as execution strategies that allow mixing local and remote execution. We could look to lift the kernel frontmatter up to the project, so that any file with code cells / eval expressions would use this metadata. At this point, Jupyter Book 1 is in its maintenance phase, so we probably won't architect such a new feature there.

Does this answer your question? :)

[chrisjsewell]

The important information is not so much "this is executable", but rather "this file uses kernel"

👍

[chrisjsewell]

Is there a shorter way to mark executable documents

yes:

https://myst-nb.readthedocs.io/en/latest/authoring/basics.html#text-based-notebooks

---
file_format: mystnb
kernelspec:
  name: python3
---