[Feature] Show time stamp and zone when code cell last ran

[rrmistry]

Would be good to capture when the code cell ran at the bottom of the cell.

For example:

This could be toggled with a switch if it is too verbose

[greazer]

Thanks for the idea @rrmistry! Seems like a reasonable request. However, can I ask for a bit more detail as to what spurred this request on? Why do you find it important information to have?

[rrmistry]

Thanks @greazer ! our use case is one where we have a lot of long-running notebooks executed by end-users on Azure VMs. Usual ETAs are in range of 4-8 hours.

So having a time stamp really makes it clear when troubleshooting which cells have completed in relation to external events.

One option is to alter user-behavior and ask to add print statements at the end of each code cell. But there are challenges here, especially for newly onboarded users / interns.

Having this functionality built-in would be hugely helpful in problem diagnosis!

[hamzamohdzubair]

This extension: last_executed_time provides the same functionality in jupyter notebooks

[wmayner]

Echoing @rrmistry, I often have expensive computations across several notebooks that I leave running, sometimes for days, and it's very useful to be able to see when they finished—e.g., was this the most recent run, or the one from last week?

I'm currently using the extension pointed out by @hamzamohdzubair, but I'd like to switch to VSCode instead of JupyterLab.

[dns4861]

I would second that request. I often use notebooks for "quick-and-dirty" analysis that does not necessarily lead to a linear execution of cells. There it is very helpful to see when a cell has been executed last. I'm currently using the aforementioned extension in jupyter-lab but would like to switch everything over to VSCode.

[romanovzky]

I would like this feature as well.

[charris-msft]

My additional ask here is to keep displaying the last execution details until the cell completes its next successful run.

Right now, the previous execution time is replaced with the elapsed time when the cell is run again, preventing me from seeing whether I have enough time to get coffee, dinner or go on vacation before I can expect it to finish.

See the red text from this issue: Add previous execution time next to elapsed time in cell #9818

[PedroMartinez4]

This feature would be incredibly useful for troubleshooting notebooks with long runtimes and/or many cells. Sometimes the process is not linear so a timestamp would greatly enhance the workflow of Jupyter in VS code.

[charris-msft]

Today I finished a new, purpose-built computer for working with Pandas, etc. So the first thing I wanted to do is see how much performance improvement I get for my $1500.

I am running through each cell, and adding a comment about the configuration as well as the execution time.

Example:

# old Execution time: 1m 35.7s
# new 1 Standard Phase Control: 42.3s
# new 2 Extreme Phase Control: 36.8s

I don't expect most users to do this kind of perf testing and tweaking of the OC settings on the motherboard, but I do expect them to care about the time it takes to execute different versions of a cell.

Now, if you really want to delight folks like me how about showing the elapsed/execution time and the previous execution time (as described above); and show me show me the last 10 executions when I click on a clock/history icon next to the execution time that displays the time for each, and the contents of the cell when it was executed; and let me diff the code between two different executions.

[now-youre-gittin-it]

I second @wmayner 's use-case, especially for machine learning tasks where many parameters may be tweaked and some but not all cells would need repeated execution. In fact, VSCode is helpful for running such code because it shows the time taken to run each cell by default, unlike JupyterLab. However, when the work is spread out over a period of multiple days and you need to troubleshoot issues, its tough to recall when the last cell-of-interest was run. Do hope this becomes a feature!

[maciejkos]

I strongly support this feature request too!

[FayDoom]

That's a feature I would really like to see !

[lironle6]

+1 Missing this terribly since migrating from Jupyter Lab

[roblourens]

Adding this as a tooltip. This is in the current locale time zone. Let me know if this is what you are looking for

[maciejkos]

Thanks for working on it @roblourens !

I think a tooltip would be helpful in some use cases. What I think most people would want is what the last_executed_time Jupyter extension implements (as @greggman mentioned).

[rrmistry]

Hi @roblourens,

Thanks for the work!

---

It would still be nice to show timestamps directly in UI (without the tooltip)

Would you recommend:

• Creating a new issue to track it in the backlog? OR
• Re-Open this issue? OR
• Is the VS Code team not planning on creating the display as the suggested example screenshot?

[wmayner]

Thank you for the tooltip! I second the previous comment, though—having it directly on the UI, so it can be seen at a glance, would be great.

[roblourens]

We can look into having this behind a setting. I'd prefer to enable extensions to contribute this, but we don't have the right API for it.

[nicocanali]

Thanks a lot for this feature!

Another suggestion could be to persist this somehow (maybe with notebook tags?). For example, see how Colab does it:

[tosaric]

Is this feature already implemented, and if yes, how to add it?

[joaofbravo]

Is this feature already implemented, and if yes, how to add it?

Wondering the same for the in-cell display (not the tooltip).

[marctorsoc]

Thanks a lot for this feature!

Another suggestion could be to persist this somehow (maybe with notebook tags?). For example, see how Colab does it:

See my long comment here: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-jupyter/issues/13338#issuecomment-1645393350

[nonoash]

Bumping this, doing some back and forth with Pycharm that has this feature implemented, it would be nice to have it in Vscode. i'd prefer this kind of minimalist verbose as the first 2 pic below (maybe without the TZ) similar to Pycharm and Jupuyer plugin Pycharm:

rather than a full 3 lines style