Python environment with a requirements.txt

A Binder-compatible repo with a requirements.txt file.

Access this Binder at the following URL

http://mybinder.org/v2/gh/binder-examples/requirements/HEAD

Notes

The requirements.txt file should list all Python libraries that your notebooks depend on, and they will be installed using:

pip install -r requirements.txt

The base Binder image contains no extra dependencies, so be as explicit as possible in defining the packages that you need. This includes specifying explicit versions wherever possible.

If you do specify strict versions, it is important to do so for all your dependencies, not just direct dependencies. Strictly specifying only some dependencies is a recipe for environments breaking over time.

If the root requirements.txt for some reason doesn't align with the dependencies you need in your Binder environment, you can create a requirements.txt file in a .binder folder that will take precedent!

pip-compile is a handy tool for combining loosely specified dependencies with a fully frozen environment. You write a requirements.in with just the dependencies you need and pip-compile will generate a requirements.txt with all the strict packages and versions that would come from installing that package right now. That way, you only need to specify what you actually know you need, but you also get a snapshot of your environment.

In this example we include the library seaborn which will be installed in the environment, and our notebook uses it to plot a figure.