👩💻Get Started with a Workspace
Ontologic Workspaces are managed virtual workstations in the cloud. Workspaces allow you to develop, install, and run analyses on a version controlled machine, and adjust compute power as needed.
This is where most workflows start on our platform. A Workspace is where you will do the bulk of your development, before optionally converting your Workspace into an Ontologic Tool for easy reuse and sharing.
1. Create a new Workspace
In your project, navigate to the Workspaces tab on the left.
Click the Create Workspace button in the top right. A dialog will open where you can name your Workspace and choose a base image.
Once you've provided a name and chosen a base image, click Create. A new Workspace with your chosen name will appear on the Workspaces page.
1.5 (Optional) Configure hardware requirements
By default, Workspaces are configured with 2 CPU cores and 8 GB of memory. If you require additional resources, you can edit a Workspace's requirements before starting the Workspace.
You can update a Workspace's hardware requirements any time the Workspace is not in use, so don't worry if you aren't sure what requirements you will need yet.
To edit Workspace hardware requirements, click on the Gear Icon to the right of your Workspace's Start button.
This will open the Edit Workspace dialog.
Here, you can update your Workspace requirements and see how much it will cost while running. Once you have made your changes, click Save to apply them to the Workspace.
If you are not sure what hardware requirements you need, the default of 2 CPU Cores and 8 GB of Memory is a good place to start, and is sufficient for many uses.
2. Interact with a Workspace
Start the Workspace
To start a Workspace, click the Start button to the right of the Workspace name. This will request whatever hardware requirements you have set for the Workspace and begin loading the Workspace.
Starting a Workspace normally takes fewer than 30 seconds, but can take up to a few minutes, depending on resource availability. The first time opening a Workspace may take longer as it needs to download the base image first.
As a Workspace is starting up, you will see the status message change periodically. However, don't panic if it remains on the same message for a few minutes!
Some base images are large and may take longer to download, and network connectivity issues can cause slowdowns so please be patient. You may leave the page and check on the Workspace in a few minutes, it will not affect the startup process.
Once the Workspace is started, the status will change to "Running" and an Open button will appear.
Open the Workspace
After your Workspace has started, click on the Open button. This will open an embedded VSCode editor in your browser.
By default, a Workspace is opened to your user's home directory.
You will see an automatic popup from VSCode asking "Do you trust the authors of the files in this folder?" Please select "Yes" to allow editing.
If you are already familiar with VSCode or other development environments, you can use this embedded version essentially the same way you would use it from your desktop!
Interact with project files
In the explorer tab on the left hand side of VSCode, there is a special folder named Files. This folder provides access to all files you've uploaded to or generated within the current project - excepting files stored in the projectData directory. Files stored in the projectData directory will remain in your Workspace.
As you use your Workspace, you can save files to this folder and they will be automatically synchronized with your project files in the Ontologic platform. These can be found in the Files tab of the Ontologic navigation bar, as well as in your VSCode Files directory.
Install software and dependencies
VSCode provides access to the Workspace's terminal by pressing Ctrl + ~. In the terminal that appears, you can install dependencies and packages as you would on your local workstation.
If you did not choose a base image with Python already installed, you will not have default access to pip or pip3
3. Pause a Workspace and Save your Work
Stop the Workspace
From your Workspace, click on the highlighted Workspaces tab on the left navigation bar. This will bring you back to the Workspaces dashboard.
Here, find the Workspace you were running, and click the Stop button.
This will open a popup asking whether you would like to save your changes.
Note that if you choose to discard your unsaved changes, this CANNOT be undone and you cannot restore those changes.
If you would like to discard your changes since you last saved, click Discard to stop the Workspace and discard your changes.
If you would like to save your changes, click Save and your changes will be saved.
The state of the Workspace will change to STOP_REQUESTED. In the background, Ontologic is gathering all of your changes and bundling them into a Workspace Snapshot.
Depending on the file size of the changes you made within the Workspace, it may take a few minutes to fully save a Workspace Snapshot.
4. Use Workspaces throughout Ontologic
Call your Workspace Code as a reusable Ontologic Tool
If you want to convert the code that you've developed in your Workspace into an Ontologic Tool that can be shared and run from a simple, low-code user interface, please head on over to the tutorial for how to create an Ontologic Tool.
Restore or Duplicate a Workspace
Each time a Workspace is saved, it creates a immutable version that you can always go back to. To revert a Workspace to a previous version, click on the three vertical dot icon next to your Workspace's Start button, then select Restore Version.
This will bring up a dialog that allows you to select any previous Snapshot of this Workspace, sorted by the time at which it was saved. Once you've selected the version you'd like to restore, click Save. The next time the Workspace is launched, it will start with this version.
Restoring an old version from a Snapshot will never destroy newer versions. You may always restore to any saved version of a Workspace.
Duplicate a Workspace
If you would like to base a new Workspace on an existing one, you can do that from the same menu as above.
To duplicate a Workspace, click on the three vertical dot icon next to your Workspace's Start button. Then click on Duplicate.
This will bring up a dialog that allows you to name the new copy of the selected Workspace.
Once you click Duplicate, a new Workspace will be created using the same snapshot and hardware requirements as the current version of the original Workspace.
Next Steps
Congratulations! You should now be familiar with:
✅ How to create a new Workspace and update its hardware requirements
✅ How to start a Workspace running and open VSCode
✅ How to edit and save your project files inside a Workspace
✅ How to stop a Workspace and save your work
✅ How to restore a previous version or duplicate a Workspace
If you want to continue following our startup guide, please head on over to the tutorial on how to set up the Boltz-2 protein-folding model in a Workspace next! 👇
Last updated