materials-fds-xeus-lite

Browser-based Data 8-style environment powered by JupyterLite + Xeus Python.

What is included

• Full public course materials from data-8/materials-fds
• Labs: lab/
• Homework: hw/
• Projects: project/
• Lecture notebooks: lectures/
• Local filesystem access via jupyterlab-filesystem-access (sidebar folder icon; Chromium-based browsers only)

Where to start

• Open the deployed site and use the homepage calendar to jump into notebooks.
• In Lab, use the file browser to navigate under lab/, hw/, project/, and lectures/.
• For a quick local test notebook, open demo.ipynb at the root.

Run locally

From the repo root:

jupyter lite build --contents content --output-dir dist
cp landing/index.html dist/index.html
cp landing/data8logo.png dist/data8logo.png
jupyter lite serve --output-dir dist --port 8000

Then visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

Frontend extensions

Frontend (JupyterLab) extensions are declared in .github/build-environment.yml, the conda environment CI builds the site from. jupyter lite build vendors every prebuilt extension it finds in that environment's {sys.prefix}/share/jupyter/labextensions into dist/extensions/, so adding one is a one-line change to that file — no jupyter-lite.json and no code required.

Currently included:

• jupyterlab-filesystem-access — mounts a folder from the user's real hard drive into the Lab file browser using the browser File System Access API, so students can open and save notebooks and data files directly instead of uploading/downloading. Frontend-only, so it does not affect environment.yml (the xeus kernel environment). Chromium-based browsers only (Chrome, Edge, Brave): on Firefox and Safari the sidebar tab still appears but logs The File System Access API is not supported in this browser. and does nothing.

When building locally, use a clean environment created from .github/build-environment.yml rather than a general-purpose Jupyter environment — otherwise every unrelated labextension installed there is copied into dist/ too, and the local site will not match what CI deploys.

Upstream references

• Source materials: github.com/data-8/materials-fds
• Textbook: inferentialthinking.com

Notes on READMEs

• Root README.md (this file) is repo-focused.
• content/README.md is student-facing and is what opens inside JupyterLite.