Setup guide

This guide gets you ready to run the course Marimo notebooks in VS Code using the official marimo extension, GitHub Copilot, and a reproducible pixi environment. Additional lecture and assignment notebooks will be published in Marimo format as the course proceeds.

Install pixi

• Follow the installation instructions at https://pixi.sh/latest/.

Install VS Code

• Download and install from https://code.visualstudio.com/.

Download the course materials

• Direct download (recommended): https://github.com/yoavram/ModelsPopBiol/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
  • Unzip and note the folder path (e.g., ~/Downloads/ModelsPopBiol-master).
• If you prefer git, clone https://github.com/yoavram/ModelsPopBiol (not covered here).

Open the course folder in VS Code

• Start VS Code in the course folder: File → Open Folder… → select the course folder.

Install VS Code extensions (main workflow)

• Open VS Code → Extensions and install:
  • Python (by Microsoft): https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/python-quick-start
  • Marimo (official): https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=marimo-team.vscode-marimo
  • GitHub Copilot: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/setup
• Get Copilot Pro for free with GitHub Student Pack: https://education.github.com/pack

Create the course environment from the VS Code terminal

• In VS Code: Terminal → New Terminal. Confirm the terminal path is the course folder (the one containing pixi.lock).
• Run:

  pixi install --locked
  

Quick test

In the VS Code terminal, run:

pixi run python -c "import numpy; print(numpy.__version__)"

You should see version number without errors.

Open Marimo notebooks in VS Code (main flow)

• Open index.py in VS Code.
• Click the Marimo notebook button in the editor to view it as a notebook instead of a .py file.

Optional: start marimo app from the terminal

• Open one notebook file:

  pixi run marimo edit notebooks/population-growth.py
  

• Open a whole folder of notebooks:

  pixi run marimo edit notebooks