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About the interface

Overview of the Livedocs interface, editor features, and machine-backed notebooks

Using the Livedocs Interface

Livedocs is a notebook-based IDE designed for serious data work — every notebook runs on a machine, and every element in the UI is designed to help you get answers faster, collaborate better, and scale your work.

Machine-backed Notebooks

Each document in Livedocs is powered by a machine — a compute environment with memory and CPU. This lets you:

  • Run SQL and Python code with large datasets.
  • Cache results across cells.
  • Maintain variables and session context.

You don’t need to manage this manually — Livedocs allocates and optimizes resources for you, with tools like caching, memory reuse, and compute delegation to your warehouse.

Editor Header

  • Doc / App Toggle – Switch between notebook mode and app mode.
  • Run Button – Executes the entire doc in order.
  • Share Settings – Share with teammates, invite by email, or generate public links. You can also embed your doc or app.
  • Publish (in App mode) – Makes the app available to others in your workspace or publicly.

The sidebar is split into five sections:

1. Agent

  • Access AI tools: generate, debug, explain, and summarize code or queries.

2. Data Explorer

  • Browse all connected databases and uploaded files.
  • Connect new databases.
  • Preview sample rows, view schemas, and add column descriptions to improve AI performance.

3. Variables

  • Secrets – Stored securely for safe access. Learn more about secrets
  • Built-in Variables – Helpful context for dynamic code:
    • context is "logic" if run manually, or "scheduled" if triggered by a schedule.
    • last_scheduled_run gives the ISO timestamp of the last scheduled run, or is undefined if never run.
  • User-defined Variables – All Python variables, functions, dataframes, and more that exist in your notebook kernel.

4. Scheduled Runs

5. Doc Settings

  • Auto-run on Load – Run the doc when opened.
  • Cache Cells – Enable caching for SQL, chart, and table cells.
  • Theme – Toggle dark mode.
  • Keyboard Shortcuts – Full list available here.

Status Bar (Bottom of the Editor)

  • Mode Indicator – Shows if you’re in Command or Edit mode. Keyboard shortcuts work only in Command mode.
  • Terminal Access – Click to open a Bash terminal connected to your doc’s machine.
  • Errors and Warnings – See issues across all cells at a glance.
  • Token Usage – View current token usage for your workspace.
  • Memory Usage – See how much memory is used vs available.

Livedocs automatically manages memory and performance using caching, in-memory reuse, smart reordering, and compute pushdown to warehouses.