zarr-intro

An interactive Jupyter notebook that teaches the Zarr data model from first principles, then introduces Icechunk for version-controlled Zarr.

What's covered

1. Zarr as a protocol — stores, groups, arrays, chunks, and how they map to key-value backends
2. Backend independence — the same API over local files, in-memory stores, or cloud storage
3. Icechunk — git-like versioning (commits, time travel) without changing the Zarr API
4. On-disk internals — how Icechunk organizes refs, snapshots, manifests, chunks, and transaction logs

A companion StoreExplorer widget (built with anywidget) displays three live panels alongside the notebook: the logical Zarr data model, the store keys, and the actual files on disk.

Setup

Requires Python 3.12+.

uv sync

Usage

uv run jupyter lab zarr-intro.ipynb

Run cells top to bottom. The StoreExplorer opens in a side panel and auto-refreshes after each cell.

License

MIT