nbwipers: Setup and Troubleshooting

What is nbwipers?

Rust
Up to 200x faster; no git filter install support


as of , add to aqua.yaml:

packages:

  - name: felixgwilliams/[email protected]

Then run:

aqua install

2. Configure git filter

Run once per repo (writes to .git/config):

git config filter.nbwipers.clean "nbwipers clean -"

git config filter.nbwipers.smudge cat

git config filter.nbwipers.required true

Or edit .git/config directly:

[filter "nbwipers"]

    clean = nbwipers clean -

    smudge = cat

    required = true

required = true makes the commit fail if nbwipers is not installed. This prevents accidentally committing outputs.

3. Add .gitattributes

In the repo root, add .gitattributes:

*.ipynb filter=nbwipers

**/.ipynb_checkpoints/*.ipynb !filter

**/.virtual_documents/*.ipynb !filter

The !filter lines exclude checkpoint and virtual document files from filtering.

4. Verify

git check-attr filter path/to/notebook.ipynb

# Expected: filter: nbwipers

Today's issue: nbwipers was not working

Symptom

Committed a notebook in example2/. Outputs were not stripped.

Debug

git check-attr filter example2/pipeline.ipynb

# Output: example2/pipeline.ipynb: filter: nbstripout  ← wrong!

The filter was nbstripout, not nbwipers, even though .gitattributes says nbwipers.

Root cause

Found the culprit in .git/info/attributes:

*.ipynb filter=nbstripout

*.zpln filter=nbstripout

*.ipynb diff=ipynb

This file was written by nbstripout --install in the past.

Git attribute priority (highest to lowest):

1. 
   .git/info/attributes ← highest priority


2. 
   .gitattributes in the same directory as the file


3. 
   .gitattributes in parent directories (up to repo root)


4. Global core.attributesfile
   

Because .git/info/attributes has the highest priority, nbstripout was winning over nbwipers in .gitattributes.

Fix

Remove the nbstripout lines from .git/info/attributes:

Before:

*.ipynb filter=nbstripout

*.zpln filter=nbstripout

*.ipynb diff=ipynb

After:

*.ipynb diff=ipynb

Verify fix

git check-attr filter example2/pipeline.ipynb

# Output: example2/pipeline.ipynb: filter: nbwipers  ← correct

Key takeaway

When switching from nbstripout to nbwipers, check .git/info/attributes.

nbstripout --install writes there, not to .gitattributes.

If both tools have entries, .git/info/attributes always wins.