Comma

Share a Colab notebook as HTML

Colab's share button shares a runtime. That's exactly right when the other person is going to run the thing, and exactly wrong when they're going to read it. A stakeholder opening a shared Colab link gets a Google sign-in, a code cell at the top of the document, a "Run all" button, and the standing possibility of changing the numbers they were asked to review.

What that reader wants is the output: charts, tables, the narrative between them. That's a static export — and the export is one line.

Export and publish, from inside the notebook

!jupyter nbconvert --to html --no-input /content/notebook.ipynb

import os, requests
requests.patch(
    f"https://commareports.com/api/v1/reports/{os.environ['COMMA_REPORT_ID']}",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['COMMA_API_TOKEN']}"},
    json={
        "title": "Weekly analysis",
        "html": open("/content/notebook.html").read(),
    },
    timeout=30,
)

--no-input drops the code cells and keeps the outputs and markdown — the audience-facing document. Drop the flag when the audience is technical; many teams keep both, as two reports with two URLs.

Put the token in Colab's Secrets panel (userdata.get("COMMA_API_TOKEN")), not in a cell. Use a scoped token with reports:write so a leaked notebook can't do anything else.

PATCH on a saved report id gives one URL with a revision per run, so last month's link opens this month's analysis and the two can be diffed.

What the published version gives you

  • Frozen outputs. Nobody re-runs the analysis by accident, and what a reviewer saw is what a revision recorded.
  • Comments on a chart. Pinned to the figure, not floating in a thread — see commenting on HTML. The reader needs no Google account.
  • Interactive plots survive. Plotly and Altair figures exported into the HTML keep working inside the sandbox — see interactive HTML reports.
  • Access you control. Private, team-visible, domain-gated, or named reviewers. See the sharing model.

Limits

  • HTML body: 5 MB. A notebook with many inline images passes it — downsample figures, or attach the heavy ones as assets.
  • Scripts run, sandboxed: allow-scripts, no allow-same-origin.

Try it

Comma is free — unlimited reports, unlimited commenters, unlimited revision history.

Create your first report →

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