Use code completion and code generation

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 write and generate code 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.

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.

Enable code completion and code generation

To enable code completion and code generation, do the following:

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

    Go to My notebooks

  2. In the toolbar, click the  Help me code button and select the features that you want to use.

    The list of Gemini in Colab Enterprise features under the Help me code button, including code completion and code generation.
    • Code completion suggests code while you type.
    • Code generation generates code from a description of what you want.

    If the  Help me code button isn't active, or if you don't see a list of features when you click the button, see Set up Gemini in Colab Enterprise for a project.

Use code completion

To use code completion in a Colab Enterprise notebook, 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 the toolbar, click the pen_spark Help me code button and select Code completion if it isn't already selected.

  5. In a code cell of your notebook, start entering code. Colab Enterprise suggests a potential way to complete your code in gray italic text.

    For example, if you enter import p, Colab Enterprise might suggest a code completion that imports pandas as pd followed by a line that reads a CSV file and stores the contents in a pandas dataframe.

  6. To accept the suggested code completion, press Tab.

Use code generation

To generate code using Gemini for Google Cloud:

  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 the toolbar, click the  Help me code button and select Code generation if it isn't already selected.

  5. In your notebook, add a blank code cell, or click a code cell that doesn't have any code in it.

  6. Click  Available AI features, and then click Generate code.

  7. In the  Generate field, type a description of the code that you want to generate, and then press Enter.

  8. To close the Generate panel, click  Close.

Turn off code completion and code generation

To turn off code completion and code generation, do the following:

  1. In the Colab Enterprise toolbar, click the  Help me code button.

  2. Clear the features that you want to turn off.

Troubleshoot

This section shows you how to resolve issues with using Gemini in Colab Enterprise.

Gemini features not working

When you type in a Colab Enterprise notebook, code completion suggestions don't appear. Or, the pen_spark Help me code button doesn't appear above a code cell.

In your Colab Enterprise settings, you might have turned off the Show context-powered code completions setting.

To resolve this issue, do the following:

  1. Click  Toggle header visibility.
  2. On the Tools menu, click Settings.
  3. Click Editor.
  4. Select Show context-powered code completions.
  5. Click Save.

What's next