---
id: nbformat
version: "5.11.0"
license: BSD 3-Clause License - Copyright (c) 2001-2015, IPython Development Team - Copyright (c) 2015-, Jupyter Development Team All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with… (full text in the JSON record)
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# nbformat — The Jupyter Notebook format

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Popularity: top 1,000 on PyPI

## Install

pip install nbformat
uv add nbformat
poetry add nbformat

## Description

# nbformat: Jupyter Notebook Format

![CI Tests](https://github.com/jupyter/nbformat/workflows/Run%20tests/badge.svg)

`nbformat` contains the reference implementation of the [Jupyter Notebook format],
and Python APIs for working with notebooks.

There is also a JSON Schema for nbformat versions >= 3.

## Installation

From the command line:

```{.sourceCode .bash}
pip install nbformat
```

## Using a different json schema validator

We use `fastjsonschema` by default. To use `jsonschema` instead, set the environment variable `NBFORMAT_VALIDATOR` to the value `jsonschema`.

## Python Version Support

This library supported Python 2.7 and Python 3.5+ for `4.x.x` releases. With Python 2's end-of-life nbformat `5.x.x` supported Python 3 only. Support for Python 3.x versions will be dropped when they are officially sunset by the python organization.

## Contributing

Read [CONTRIBUTING.md](./CONTRIBUTING.md) for guidelines on how to setup a local development environment and make code changes back to nbformat.

## About the Jupyter Development Team

The Jupyter Development Team is the set of all contributors to the Jupyter project.
This includes all of the Jupyter subprojects.

The...

## AI interpretation — verify before relying

nbformat is the reference implementation of the Jupyter Notebook format, providing Python APIs to read, write, and validate notebook files against the official JSON schema.

Verdict: nbformat is a well-maintained, actively developed core Jupyter library with no known vulnerabilities, permissive licensing, and low install friction. It is the authoritative implementation for notebook format handling and is suitable for production use in notebook-processing workflows.

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/nbformat) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/nbformat/)