Lightcone Lab

The open AI-assisted research workbench

Lightcone Lab brings a research workbench into JupyterLab, connecting methods, evidence, and computation. The extension currently provides an ASTRA analysis inventory, materialized outputs, and cited papers. ASTRA is the analysis format; astra.yaml and its SDK contracts retain their names.

Requirements

• Python >= 3.11
• JupyterLab >= 4.5.10, < 5
• Node.js >= 20 for extension development only

Install

pip install jupyterlab-lightcone

The wheel includes the frontend, shared components, and PDF.js assets. End users do not need Node.js or sibling source checkouts.

Use

Open astra.yaml in the file browser, or select Open With → Lightcone Lab. The Lightcone Lab launcher category and command palette also offer ASTRA Inventory. The inventory is read-only: viewing preserves analysis and result files and starts no kernel. JupyterLab may create its standard document checkpoint when opening a writable file; the normal text editor remains available for editing.

The inventory shows outputs, decisions, inputs, findings, prior insights, and cited papers using the shared ASTRA components. Select an analysis or record to inspect its details. Figures, CSV/TSV tables, and JSON tables/metrics have bounded previews and an action to open the full artifact. Paths, universe selection, validation, and artifact cache tokens come from @astra-spec/sdk.

Launcher actions use the launcher's directory. Palette actions use the current project/document or file-browser directory. Opening the same project reuses its document tab; different projects keep their own selection and dialogs. You can also open an explicit project programmatically:

app.commands.execute('jupyterlab_lightcone:open-inventory', {
  path: 'research/astra.yaml',
  analysisPath: '$'
});

Projects refresh after relevant file operations, through Refresh ASTRA Inventory, and by polling while the browser is visible. Multiple views of the same project share that work. A transient invalid edit preserves the last valid view and displays a notice until the project recovers.

Cited papers

Cached papers are read from ~/.cache/astra/papers, retaining access to existing ASTRA caches. Set LIGHTCONE_PAPER_CACHE_DIR in the Jupyter server environment to use another location; ASTRA_PAPER_CACHE_DIR remains supported as a fallback. On JupyterHub this configuration belongs to each single-user server.

Missing PDFs are downloaded only when you choose Fetch paper, using astra-tools==0.2.17. Cache lookup and download failures do not prevent viewing the analysis. Cached PDFs are served from the authenticated Jupyter origin and support continuous scrolling, zoom, and navigation to cited passages.

Appearance

Inventory components use the shared Lightcone brand and follow JupyterLab's light/dark theme without changing the surrounding shell.

The brand adapter from @lightcone-research/brand supplies every ASTRA UI token; the extension does not redefine any of them from JupyterLab settings. JupyterLab styles plain button, a, select, code and pre elements throughout its shell, which would otherwise override the shared components' layered styles (style/base.css explains the cascade). Inside the inventory those elements are handed back to the ASTRA UI and brand layers, so they render exactly as the shared components define them.

Troubleshoot

Check that both extensions are enabled:

jupyter server extension list
jupyter labextension list

After installing a new extension, restart JupyterLab. During development, build after TypeScript changes and refresh the browser; restart the server after Python changes.

Uninstall

pip uninstall jupyterlab-lightcone

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the template's development, testing, and packaging workflow, and AGENTS.md for repository conventions.