Configuration

Taking full advantage of Dask sometimes requires user configuration. This might be to control logging verbosity, specify cluster configuration, provide credentials for security, or any of several other options that arise in production.

Configuration is specified in one of the following ways:

YAML files in ~/.config/dask/ or /etc/dask/
Environment variables like DASK_DISTRIBUTED__SCHEDULER__WORK_STEALING=True
Default settings within sub-libraries

This combination makes it easy to specify configuration in a variety of settings ranging from personal workstations, to IT-mandated configuration, to docker images.

Access Configuration

dask

dask.config.get

Configuration is usually read by using the dask.config module, either with the config dictionary or the get function:

>>> import dask
>>> import dask.distributed  # populate config with distributed defaults
>>> dask.config.config
{
    "array": {
        "chunk-size": "128 MiB",
    }
    "distributed": {
        "logging": {
            "distributed": "info",
            "bokeh": "critical",
            "tornado": "critical"
         },
         "admin": {
             "log-format": "%(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s"
         }
    }
}

>>> dask.config.get("distributed.logging")
{
    'distributed': 'info',
    'bokeh': 'critical',
    'tornado': 'critical'
}

>>> dask.config.get('distributed.logging.bokeh')  # use `.` for nested access
'critical'

You may wish to inspect the dask.config.config dictionary to get a sense for what configuration is being used by your current system.

Note that the get function treats underscores and hyphens identically. For example, dask.config.get('num_workers') is equivalent to dask.config.get('num-workers').

Values like "128 MiB" and "10s" are parsed using the functions in api.utilities.

Specify Configuration

YAML files

You can specify configuration values in YAML files like the following:

array:
   chunk-size: 128 MiB

distributed:
  logging:
    distributed: info
    bokeh: critical
    tornado: critical

  scheduler:
    work-stealing: True
    allowed-failures: 5

    admin:
      log-format: '%(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s'

These files can live in any of the following locations:

The ~/.config/dask directory in the user's home directory
The {sys.prefix}/etc/dask directory local to Python
The root directory (specified by the DASK_ROOT_CONFIG environment variable or /etc/dask/ by default)

Dask searches for all YAML files within each of these directories and merges them together, preferring configuration files closer to the user over system configuration files (preference follows the order in the list above). Additionally, users can specify a path with the DASK_CONFIG environment variable, which takes precedence at the top of the list above.

The contents of these YAML files are merged together, allowing different Dask subprojects like dask-kubernetes or dask-ml to manage configuration files separately, but have them merge into the same global configuration.

Note: for historical reasons we also look in the ``~/.dask`` directory for config files. This is deprecated and will soon be removed.

Environment Variables

You can also specify configuration values with environment variables like the following:

export DASK_DISTRIBUTED__SCHEDULER__WORK_STEALING=True
export DASK_DISTRIBUTED__SCHEDULER__ALLOWED_FAILURES=5

resulting in configuration values like the following:

{
    'distributed': {
        'scheduler': {
            'work-stealing': True,
            'allowed-failures': 5
        }
    }
}

Dask searches for all environment variables that start with DASK_, then transforms keys by converting to lower case and changing double-underscores to nested structures.

Dask tries to parse all values with ast.literal_eval, letting users pass numeric and boolean values (such as True in the example above) as well as lists, dictionaries, and so on with normal Python syntax.

Environment variables take precedence over configuration values found in YAML files.

Defaults

Additionally, individual subprojects may add their own default values when they are imported. These are always added with lower priority than the YAML files or environment variables mentioned above:

>>> import dask.config
>>> dask.config.config  # no configuration by default
{}

>>> import dask.distributed
>>> dask.config.config  # New values have been added
{
    'scheduler': ...,
    'worker': ...,
    'tls': ...
}

Directly within Python

dask.config.set

Configuration is stored within a normal Python dictionary in dask.config.config and can be modified using normal Python operations.

Additionally, you can temporarily set a configuration value using the dask.config.set function. This function accepts a dictionary as an input and interprets "." as nested access:

>>> dask.config.set({'scheduler.work-stealing': True})

This function can also be used as a context manager for consistent cleanup:

with dask.config.set({'scheduler.work-stealing': True}):
    ...

Note that the set function treats underscores and hyphens identically. For example, dask.config.set({'scheduler.work-stealing': True}) is equivalent to dask.config.set({'scheduler.work_stealing': True}).

Distributing configuration

It may also be desirable to package up your whole Dask configuration for use on another machine. This is used in some Dask Distributed libraries to ensure remote components have the same configuration as your local system.

This is typically handled by the downstream libraries which use base64 encoding to pass config via the DASK_INTERNAL_INHERIT_CONFIG environment variable.

dask.config.serialize dask.config.deserialize

Conversion Utility

It is possible to configure Dask inline with dot notation, with YAML or via environment variables. You can enter your own configuration items below to convert back and forth.

Warning

This utility is designed to improve understanding of converting between different notations and does not claim to be a perfect implementation. Please use for reference only.

YAML

distributed: logging: distributed: info bokeh: critical tornado: critical

Environment variable

export DASK_DISTRIBUTED__LOGGING__DISTRIBUTED="info" export DASK_DISTRIBUTED__LOGGING__BOKEH="critical" export DASK_DISTRIBUTED__LOGGING__TORNADO="critical"

Inline with dot notation

>>> dask.config.set({"distributed.logging.distributed": "info"}) >>> dask.config.set({"distributed.logging.bokeh": "critical"}) >>> dask.config.set({"distributed.logging.tornado": "critical"})

Updating Configuration

Manipulating configuration dictionaries

dask.config.merge dask.config.update dask.config.expand_environment_variables

As described above, configuration can come from many places, including several YAML files, environment variables, and project defaults. Each of these provides a configuration that is possibly nested like the following:

x = {'a': 0, 'c': {'d': 4}}
y = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': {'e': 5}}

Dask will merge these configurations respecting nested data structures, and respecting order:

>>> dask.config.merge(x, y)
{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': {'d': 4, 'e': 5}}

You can also use the update function to update the existing configuration in place with a new configuration. This can be done with priority being given to either config. This is often used to update the global configuration in dask.config.config:

dask.config.update(dask.config, new, priority='new')  # Give priority to new values
dask.config.update(dask.config, new, priority='old')  # Give priority to old values

Sometimes it is useful to expand environment variables stored within a configuration. This can be done with the expand_environment_variables function:

dask.config.config = dask.config.expand_environment_variables(dask.config.config)

Refreshing Configuration

dask.config.collect dask.config.refresh

If you change your environment variables or YAML files, Dask will not immediately see the changes. Instead, you can call refresh to go through the configuration collection process and update the default configuration:

>>> dask.config.config
{}

>>> # make some changes to yaml files

>>> dask.config.refresh()
>>> dask.config.config
{...}

This function uses dask.config.collect, which returns the configuration without modifying the global configuration. You might use this to determine the configuration of particular paths not yet on the config path:

>>> dask.config.collect(paths=[...])
{...}

Downstream Libraries

dask.config.ensure_file dask.config.update dask.config.update_defaults

Downstream Dask libraries often follow a standard convention to use the central Dask configuration. This section provides recommendations for integration using a fictional project, dask-foo, as an example.

Downstream projects typically follow the following convention:

Maintain default configuration in a YAML file within their source directory:

setup.py
dask_foo/__init__.py
dask_foo/config.py
dask_foo/core.py
dask_foo/foo.yaml  # <---

Place configuration in that file within a namespace for the project:

# dask_foo/foo.yaml

foo:
  color: red
  admin:
    a: 1
    b: 2

Within a config.py file (or anywhere) load that default config file and update it into the global configuration:

# dask_foo/config.py
import os
import yaml

import dask.config

fn = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'foo.yaml')

with open(fn) as f:
    defaults = yaml.safe_load(f)

dask.config.update_defaults(defaults)

Within that same config.py file, copy the 'foo.yaml' file to the user's configuration directory if it doesn't already exist.

We also comment the file to make it easier for us to change defaults in the future.
```
# ... continued from above

dask.config.ensure_file(source=fn, comment=True)
```
The user can investigate ~/.config/dask/*.yaml to see all of the commented out configuration files to which they have access.
Ensure that this file is run on import by including it in __init__.py:
```
# dask_foo/__init__.py

from . import config
```

Within dask_foo code, use the dask.config.get function to access configuration values:

# dask_foo/core.py

def process(fn, color=dask.config.get('foo.color')):
    ...

You may also want to ensure that your yaml configuration files are included in your package. This can be accomplished by including the following line in your MANIFEST.in:
```
recursive-include <PACKAGE_NAME> *.yaml
```
and the following in your setup.py setup call:
```
from setuptools import setup

setup(...,
      include_package_data=True,
      ...)
```

This process keeps configuration in a central place, but also keeps it safe within namespaces. It places config files in an easy to access location by default (~/.config/dask/\*.yaml), so that users can easily discover what they can change, but maintains the actual defaults within the source code, so that they more closely track changes in the library.

However, downstream libraries may choose alternative solutions, such as isolating their configuration within their library, rather than using the global dask.config system. All functions in the dask.config module also work with parameters, and do not need to mutate global state.

API

dask.config.get

dask.config.set

dask.config.merge

dask.config.update

dask.config.collect

dask.config.refresh

dask.config.ensure_file

dask.config.expand_environment_variables

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configuration.rst

configuration.rst

Configuration

Access Configuration

Specify Configuration

YAML files

Environment Variables

Defaults

Directly within Python

Distributing configuration

Conversion Utility

Updating Configuration

Manipulating configuration dictionaries

Refreshing Configuration

Downstream Libraries

API

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configuration.rst

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Configuration

Access Configuration

Specify Configuration

YAML files

Environment Variables

Defaults

Directly within Python

Distributing configuration

Conversion Utility

Updating Configuration

Manipulating configuration dictionaries

Refreshing Configuration

Downstream Libraries

API