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Environment views

Manage your project environment from the Environment, Files, and Variables sidebars.

Environment​

You can adjust your project's compute profile, cell execution settings, and more from the Environment tab.

Compute profile​

Image​

By default, projects use Python 3.9. You can change which version of Python the project uses via the Image dropdown. If your organization uses custom images, you can use the same dropdown to select a custom image to be used in your projects.

Size​

Compute profile size determines the CPU and memory limits for your project kernels. You can adjust compute profile size to meet the needs of your project.

SizeMemory (GB)CPUsAvailability
Extra Small20.25Free
Small40.5Free
Medium (default)81Free
Large162Open Beta
Extra Large324Open Beta
2XL648Closed Beta
4XL12816Closed Beta
info
  • Medium is available on the Professional plan and higher.
  • Large and Extra Large are available in open beta on Team and Enterprise plans.
  • 2XL and 4XL are available in closed beta on Team and Enterprise plans. Request access.
  • Projects using Custom images can use up to Large compute profile sizes.

By default, projects are created with a Medium compute profile. When you update your project's compute profile size, you will need to either run your project or restart your kernel to apply the changes. Kernels powering published App sessions and scheduled runs will not be updated until you publish your changes.

Note that anonymous users (i.e. users without a Hex account) who view a publicly-shared App will always be limited to Small kernels, regardless of the underlying project's compute profile.

Not sure what size you need? The memory tracker in the lower right of your Notebook shows you how much of the total available memory your project has used. Note that the memory tracker updates after each cell runs; it does not update while a cell is running.

Before upgrading to a larger compute profile, you may want to consider some of these other techniques for optimizing compute performance and memory in your Hex project:

Cell execution order​

Hex uses a project’s DAG to understand dependencies between cells. Instead of running cells linearly according to the notebook ordering, Hex can leverage this dependency graph to perform various runtime optimizations such as parallelizing independent cells and ignoring hidden cells (when in app view).

From the Environment sidebar, use the Cell execution order toggle to determine whether the project should run with performance optimization (toggle on) or run linearly (toggle off). Leaving the toggle ON is recommended for the vast majority of cases - when in doubt, leave it alone!

In rare circumstances where Hex is not able to intuit a dependency between python cells, the toggle can be turned OFF to force linear ordering based on the notebook cell order.

Files​

From the Files sidebar in your Hex project, you can upload files including CSV and JSON files.

Variables​

From the Variables sidebar in your Hex project, you can add project secrets and environment variables, as well as reference built-in variables and any variables defined in your code.

Secrets​

Keep your sensitive values, like API tokens or passwords, secret by adding them as Secrets. We store all Secrets in a highly-encrypted vault, which is only visible to other users with "Full Access" or "Can Edit" project permissions. Secrets can be referenced in Python cells, but an attempt to display them in the Notebook view or App builder will return [SECRET VALUE] .

You can add a Secret to a project by clicking the +Add button in the Secrets tab of the left sidebar. If you want to use a Secret which is defined as a shareable, workspace Secret, choose Import workspace secret from the menu to be presented with Secrets which are available for import. If you want to create a Secret for use only in the given project select Create project secret.

To access your Secrets, call them directly in place of where you would hard-code your credentials. In the example below, we're setting up a Snowflake connection and passing the database details as Secrets.

Environment variables​

You can configure environment variables to be used in your projects. Environment variables aren't kept in the encrypted vault, nor are they redacted. Setting an environment variable in the left side panel is equivalent to using the python os library directly in your logic.

See more documentation for the os library here.

Built-in variables​

We also have some variables which are automatically included in your project. These variables can be referenced in any cell.

VariableValueDescription
hex_scheduledFalse/TrueIf the run is being executed as part of a scheduled run, this variable is set to True. If the run is executed in any other context, the variable is set to False.
hex_user_emailemailIf a user is logged in and viewing a published app, this variable is equal to the email address associated with their user account. Helpful if you want to customize what a given user sees in the app. Check out our Tutorials page for an example.
hex_run_context"logic", "app", "scheduled", "api-triggered"Describes the context that the project is being run in. Helpful if you want to restrict certain logic to only run in particular run contexts. For example, use this if you have some debug code that you want to run in the logic, but don't want to run while a user is interacting with the published app.
hex_timezone"America/Los_Angeles", "Australia/Sydney", etc.The timezone selected for the project. By default this is the workspace timezone, but can also be overridden at the project level, as well as for specific app sessions. See Chart cell timezones for more information.
hex_project_idProject ID i.e. 1f0cfa16-cea1-428a-b950-e56379f2fdacA unique project identifier found in the Project's URL
hex_project_nameProject Name i.e. "Weekly Metrics"Name given to the project
hex_status"In Progress", "Approved", "Archive", etc.Status the project is tagged with. Admins can configure custom statuses in the Organization section of workspace settings.
hex_categories["Q2 projects", "Analytics", etc.]Category or categories the project is tagged with. Admins can configure custom categories in the Organization section of workspace settings.
hex_color_palette['#4C78A8', '#F58518', '#E45756', ... ]An array of CSS color codes that map to the currently active workspace color palette. Using this variable can help create consistently themed visualizations when using both the native Chart cell and visualizations created via Python packages.

Mute cells​

If there are cells in your project that you only want to execute in specific contexts (e.g. on project runs in Notebook view, only during scheduled runs, etc.), you can do so using the built-in hex_run_context and hex_scheduled variables. With these variables, you can check the context for when each cell is run and execute the desired logic accordingly. See the below code snippets for some examples code!

if hex_run_context == 'logic':
    ## Something that only needs to happen during a Notebook run
else:
    ## otherwise this cell will be muted

Similarly, you can do the same in an SQL cell via Jinja.

{% if hex_run_context == 'logic' %}
    -- Something that only needs to happen during a Notebook run

{% endif %}

Variable explorer​

The Variable explorer allows you to browse the variables generated by your code. For each variable, we show you its name, type, and value.

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