Explain code cells with Gemini assistance

This document describes how you can use Gemini in Colab Enterprise, which is a product in the Gemini for Google Cloud portfolio, to help you explain code cells in a Colab Enterprise notebook.

Learn how and when Gemini for Google Cloud uses your data.

This document is intended for data analysts, data scientists, and data developers who work with Colab Enterprise. It assumes you have knowledge of how to write code in a notebook environment.

Overview

Gemini in Colab Enterprise can help you explain code cells in a Colab Enterprise notebook. You might want to do this when you're working with someone else's notebook and want to get a quick understanding of what the code does. Or you might need to remind yourself how parts of your notebook work after a long period of time without working on it.

After you get an explanation of a code cell, you can browse any included code snippets and review the sources. You can also use the Explain code chat dialog to discuss the code and ask follow-up questions. For more details, see Explain a code cell.

Before you begin

  1. Ensure that Gemini in Colab Enterprise is set up for your Google Cloud user account and project.
  2. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

  3. Enable the Vertex AI, Cloud AI Companion, Dataform, and Compute Engine APIs.

    Enable the APIs

    4.

  4. Enable the Vertex AI, Cloud AI Companion, Dataform, and Compute Engine APIs.

    Enable the APIs

    5.

Required roles

To get the permissions that you need to use Gemini in Colab Enterprise, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on the project:

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

You might also be able to get the required permissions through custom roles or other predefined roles.

Explain a code cell

To explain a code cell using Gemini for Google Cloud, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Colab Enterprise My notebooks page.

    Go to My notebooks

  2. In the Region menu, select the region that contains your notebook.

  3. Click the notebook that you want to open.

  4. In your notebook, click a code cell that has code in it.

  5. Click  Available AI features, and then click Explain code.

    An Explain code chat dialog appears that includes an explanation of your code.

  6. Read through the explanation, browse the example code snippets, and review the sources. Use this chat dialog to discuss the code and ask follow-up questions.

  7. To close the Explain code dialog, click  Close.

Turn off Gemini in Colab Enterprise

To turn off Gemini in Colab Enterprise for a Google Cloud project, an administrator must turn off the Gemini for Google Cloud API. See Disabling services.

To turn off Gemini in Colab Enterprise for a specific user, an administrator needs to revoke the Gemini for Google Cloud User (roles/cloudaicompanion.user) role for that user. See Revoke a single IAM role.

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