Zasper is built on top of the Jupyter wire protocol, and is fully compatible with any language that provides a Jupyter kernel.

Whether you’re working in Python, R, Julia, Go, or even JavaScript — if the kernel supports kernelspec, Zasper will detect and support it out of the box.

✅ Supported Kernels

💡 Zasper auto-discovers all installed kernels using Jupyter’s standard kernelspec system.

🔍 Viewing Installed Kernels

To check which kernels are available on your system, run:

prasunanand@Prasuns-Laptop examples % jupyter kernelspec list
Available kernels:
  deno          /Users/prasunanand/Library/Jupyter/kernels/deno
  firstenv      /Users/prasunanand/Library/Jupyter/kernels/firstenv
  gonb          /Users/prasunanand/Library/Jupyter/kernels/gonb
  ir            /Users/prasunanand/Library/Jupyter/kernels/ir
  julia-1.11    /Users/prasunanand/Library/Jupyter/kernels/julia-1.11
  ruby3         /Users/prasunanand/Library/Jupyter/kernels/ruby3
  python3       /Users/prasunanand/Library/Python/3.9/share/jupyter/kernels/python3

⚡ Installing a Python Kernel

If you’re just getting started and want a basic Python kernel:

pip install ipykernel

or

pip install jupyter

🌐 Setting Up Other Language Kernels

Here’s how to get started with a few popular non-Python kernels:

R (IRkernel)

Open R and run:

install.packages('IRkernel')
IRkernel::installspec(user = TRUE)

You’ll see an ir kernel appear in Zasper.

Julia (IJulia)

Open the Julia REPL and run:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("IJulia")

The IJulia package will automatically register the kernel.

Go (GoNb)

Install Go and GoNb:

go install github.com/janpfeifer/gonb@latest
gonb install

The Go kernel will be available in jupyter kernelspec list.

JavaScript (Deno)

Follow the official instructions:

https://docs.deno.com/runtime/reference/cli/jupyter/

Example:

deno install --unstable -A -n jupyter_deno https://deno.land/x/jupyter/cli.ts

After install, the Deno kernel will be available for use in Zasper.

🔧 Troubleshooting

If a kernel doesn’t appear in Zasper, check jupyter kernelspec list to confirm it’s registered.

Make sure you’ve installed ipykernel or the required language-specific runtime.

Restart Zasper if you installed a new kernel while it’s running.