Bonus: Binder and Remote Kernel Options - Neuromatch Course Template

JupyterLite (in-browser WASM) is the default for this template. For compute-heavy content or packages not supported by WebAssembly, you can switch to a remote kernel.

Using Binder¶

Replace JupyterLite with a mybinder.org-backed kernel by updating myst.yml:

project:
  jupyter:
    binder:
      repo: your-org/your-repo
      ref: main

Students click the power button and a Binder session launches (~30–60 seconds cold start). The environment is built from your repo’s requirements.txt, environment.yml, or Dockerfile.

Using a custom BinderHub¶

If your institution runs a private BinderHub:

project:
  jupyter:
    binder:
      url: https://binder.myorganisation.com/services/binder/
      repo: your-org/your-repo
      ref: main

Using JupyterHub¶

Point students directly at a JupyterHub instance:

project:
  jupyter:
    server:
      url: https://hub.myuniversity.edu

Mixing strategies per page¶

Override the project default on individual pages using frontmatter:

---
title: "GPU Tutorial"
jupyter:
  binder:
    repo: your-org/gpu-environment-repo
---

Or make a page entirely static by simply not including a kernelspec in its frontmatter — pages without kernelspec get no power button and no notebook generated.

Adding a Binder badge¶

To show a persistent Binder launch badge on every page (separate from the power button), add to myst.yml:

project:
  binder: https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/your-org/your-repo/HEAD