Quick Start

Get up and running with Quilt in minutes! This guide provides multiple learning paths based on your experience level and preferred learning style.

🚀 Choose Your Learning Path

👨‍💻 For Developers - Hands-on Python Tutorial

Start coding immediately with our interactive Python tutorial:

📺 For Visual Learners - Video Tutorials

Watch comprehensive video guides:

Duration: ~30 minutes total
Topics: Installation, basic operations, data versioning, collaboration

📊 For Data Scientists - Real Dataset Exploration

Explore production datasets with guided examples:

2. Authenticate (Optional for Public Data)

For public datasets like s3://quilt-example, no authentication is needed. For private buckets or catalogs, choose your authentication method:

📚 Learn more: See the Authentication Guide for detailed setup instructions, best practices, and use cases.

4. Access Your First File

5. Create Your First Package

✅ Complete the 5-minute quick start above

Discover publicly available datasets:

Featured Collections: COVID-19 research, climate data, genomics, financial datasets
No registration required - Start exploring immediately

Version control for datasets and models
Reproducible research and experiments
Collaborative data exploration

Dataset versioning for model training
Experiment tracking and comparison
Model artifact management

Enterprise Data Management

Data governance and compliance

Publication-ready data packages
Long-term data preservation

Ready to dive deeper? Continue with the Mental Model to understand how Quilt organizes and manages your data.

import quilt3

# Interactive login (for local development, notebooks)
quilt3.login()  # Opens browser for OAuth/SSO

# OR use an API key (for automation, CI/CD, scripts)
import os
quilt3.login_with_api_key(os.environ["QUILT_API_KEY"])

import quilt3

# Browse available datasets (no auth needed for public data)
packages = list(quilt3.list_packages("s3://quilt-example"))
print(f"Found {len(packages)} public datasets")

# Load a sample dataset
pkg = quilt3.Package.browse("examples/hurdat", "s3://quilt-example")
print(pkg)

# Download and read a file (using pkg from previous step)
data_file = pkg["README_NF_QUILT.md"]
content = data_file.get()
print(content)

import quilt3
import tempfile
import os

# Create a temporary file
with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode='w', delete=False, suffix='.txt') as f:
    f.write("Hello, Quilt!")
    temp_file = f.name

# Create a new package
new_pkg = quilt3.Package()
new_pkg.set("my_data.txt", temp_file)
new_pkg.set_meta({"description": "My first Quilt package"})

# Clean up
os.unlink(temp_file)

# Note: Pushing requires S3 credentials, so we'll just show the package
print(f"Package created with {len(new_pkg)} files")