async-kernel

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async-kernel provides Python Jupyter kernels and clients compatible with CPython (Jupyter & VS code) and Pyodide (Jupyterlite).

The kernel interface supports multiple connections including:

Messaging via ZMQ sockets (Jupyter, VS Code, etc).
Same-process local client (Jupyterlite).

Highlights

Built using aiologic thread-safe synchronisation primitives.
The Caller class provides a powerful but simple interface for cross-thread code execution in asyncio and trio backends, with guest event loop support built in.
A zmq poll event loop for thread-safe zmq sockets.
IPython shell
- top-level await (asyncio or trio backend) in cells
- async magic function support in cells
Per-subshell user_ns
GUI event loops ¹
- inline
- ipympl
- tk host and asyncio² or trio³ backend running as a guest
- qt host and asyncio² or trio³ backend running as a guest
Experimental support for Jupyterlite (try it online here 👈)
- %pip install magic (using micropip)
Debugger client
Local client.
ZMQ client.

Installation

pip install async-kernel

Kernelspecs

A kernelspec with the name 'async' is added when async-kernel is installed.

Kernel specs can be installed/uninstalled via the command line.

async-kernel install

# To install for a user
async-kernel install --user

For further detail about kernel spec customisation see command line and kernel configuration and custom kernel.ipynb.

Faster data serialization

orjson (a fast JSON library) is supported and will be used by default if it has been installed.

Free-threading support

async-kernel's Caller's are thread-local and it's methods are internally synchronised⁴.

Origin

async-kernel started as a fork of IPyKernel. Thank you to the original contributors of IPyKernel that made async-kernel possible.

A gui (host) enabled kernel interface starts a gui's mainloop (host) which starts the backend as a guest, then finally the Kernel is started. ↩
The asyncio implementation of start_guest_run was written by the author of aiologic and provided as a gist. ↩ ↩²
trio's start_guest_run. ↩ ↩²
free threading terminology ↩

Metadata

Release files for async-kernel 0.23.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for async-kernel 0.23.1
File	Size	Uploaded
async_kernel-0.23.1.tar.gz	384.1 kB	Sep 18, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for async-kernel 0.23.1
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
async_kernel-0.23.1-py3-none-any.whl 140.1 kB Sep 18, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 524.2 kB

Release files / async_kernel-0.23.1.tar.gz

Download URL	async_kernel-0.23.1.tar.gz
Size	384.1 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`c54f9c5bbf6f55067b6075f7c991cc1eebdb9fcd48db0f10d04c367650591fe1`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`c74f8b5b128ca449fb0a11949b5b9f422851c19443452adfb8c3635444093a59`
Upload date	Sep 18, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14`

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Identity

Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel
Publishing commit: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel/tree/9bf85a76867a45d037bf6f548707d4ce21a52e5c

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel/blob/9bf85a76867a45d037bf6f548707d4ce21a52e5c/.github/workflows/publish-to-pypi.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel/actions/runs/35309978120/attempts/1

Artifact

Subject: async_kernel-0.23.1.tar.gz
SHA-256 checksum: c54f9c5bbf6f55067b6075f7c991cc1eebdb9fcd48db0f10d04c367650591fe1 Verifying attestations

Release files / async_kernel-0.23.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	async_kernel-0.23.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size	140.1 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`9adbebb833646f1c7e7ffaec2e4b5f8a3159149f000461dc2729e065cae86295`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`9947c20fc74cef3638010d79a3f1b876aabc99de759a6bbaf25115f4a93ea4d7`
Upload date	Sep 18, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14`

Provenance

Identity

Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel
Publishing commit: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel/tree/9bf85a76867a45d037bf6f548707d4ce21a52e5c

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel/blob/9bf85a76867a45d037bf6f548707d4ce21a52e5c/.github/workflows/publish-to-pypi.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/fleming79/async-kernel/actions/runs/35309978120/attempts/1

Artifact

Subject: async_kernel-0.23.1-py3-none-any.whl
SHA-256 checksum: 9adbebb833646f1c7e7ffaec2e4b5f8a3159149f000461dc2729e065cae86295 Verifying attestations