Notebook Edit Skill

Modify Jupyter notebook cells using jq and bash.

List Cells

# Show all cells with IDs and types
jq -r '.cells | to_entries[] | "\(.key): [\(.value.cell_type)] id=\(.value.id // "none") | \(.value.source[:1] | .[0] // "" | .[0:80])"' NOTEBOOK.ipynb

Replace a Cell's Source

# Replace cell by index (0-based)
jq --arg src "print(\"hello world\")\n" \
   '.cells[0].source = ($src | split("\n") | map(if . == "" then . else . + "\n" end) | .[:-1])' \
   NOTEBOOK.ipynb > /tmp/nb_tmp.ipynb && mv /tmp/nb_tmp.ipynb NOTEBOOK.ipynb

Insert a New Cell

# Insert a code cell after index 2
jq --arg src "# New cell\nprint(42)\n" \
   '.cells |= (.[0:3] + [{
     "id": ("new-" + (now | tostring)),
     "cell_type": "code",
     "source": ($src | split("\n") | map(if . == "" then . else . + "\n" end) | .[:-1]),
     "metadata": {},
     "outputs": [],
     "execution_count": null
   }] + .[3:])' \
   NOTEBOOK.ipynb > /tmp/nb_tmp.ipynb && mv /tmp/nb_tmp.ipynb NOTEBOOK.ipynb

Delete a Cell

# Delete cell at index 1
jq 'del(.cells[1])' NOTEBOOK.ipynb > /tmp/nb_tmp.ipynb && mv /tmp/nb_tmp.ipynb NOTEBOOK.ipynb

Tips

• Always read the notebook first to understand its structure
• Notebook source lines should end with \n except the last line
• Use jq for reliable JSON manipulation
• Back up the notebook before complex edits
• For simple edits, you can also use the Read/Write tools directly on the JSON