How to start a workspace

This page is the practical checklist for creating a new workspace. For background concepts, see Workspaces & templates.

Create a workspace

1. Open the workspaces home page and click Create.
2. Pick a template.
   • Global templates are maintained by your admin.
   • My templates are private templates you created or imported.
3. Enter a workspace name, or keep the suggested name.
4. Review the resource defaults.
5. Expand Advanced if you need to change CPU, memory, GPU, folders, or environment variables.
6. Click Create.

Selecting a template does not begin a download. If a registry image is missing, the form offers Pull and requests confirmation before the download starts. Dockerfile-backed personal templates use Build from Templates → My templates. For an administrator-built global template, Pull copies the prepared image into your own image store; ask the administrator to build it if it is not ready.

Choose CPU and memory

In Advanced, set:

• CPU - the number of CPU cores the workspace can use.
• Memory - the RAM limit in GB.

Raise CPU for preprocessing or dataloaders. Raise memory for large in-memory datasets, notebooks, or model loading. If the server runs cgroup v1, the UI warns that CPU and memory limits are not enforced on that host.

Choose GPU

The GPU controls depend on what your admin enabled and what your quota allows.

Mode	Use when
No GPU	You are editing code, preprocessing data, or running CPU-only work.
Whole GPU	You need full device performance or compatibility.
Shared GPU (HAMi)	You need part of a GPU with a memory and compute cap.
MIG slice	Your server has MIG-capable GPUs and you need an isolated slice size.

If whole GPU capacity is busy, you can still create the workspace and start it later when a GPU is free. If the template requires a GPU and your quota is exhausted, the create button remains blocked.

Add folders

Every workspace automatically mounts your host ~/work directory as /work. To add more folders:

1. Expand More options - environment variables, folders.
2. Click Folders.
3. Keep or uncheck admin-provided shared mount presets.
4. To add your own folder, click Add folder.
5. Pick a host folder from the file picker.
6. Set Path inside workspace, for example /mnt/<your-username>/my-project. LabPod suggests this editable target for personal folders; /work and /home/<you> are reserved.
7. Leave Read-only enabled unless the workspace must write to that folder.
8. Click Done.

Folder changes apply when the workspace starts. If the workspace is already running, stop and start it after changing folders in settings.

Add environment variables

Use environment variables for values the container should receive at start time.

1. Expand More options - environment variables, folders.
2. Click Add environment variable.
3. Enter a name and value.
4. Create the workspace.

Examples:

HF_HOME=/work/.hf-cache
WANDB_MODE=offline
CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0

Avoid putting long-lived secrets in templates, because template environment variables are reused by every workspace created from that template. For per-workspace tokens, add them on the workspace itself and rotate them when they are no longer needed.

Start and open it

After creation, open the workspace detail page and click Start. LabPod runs the container, applies your resources, mounts folders, injects environment variables, and attaches any selected GPU.

When the workspace is running:

• Click Open on LabPod Terminal for a shell.
• Click Start on JupyterLab, code-server, TensorBoard, MLflow, or another launcher.
• Click Open on a running launcher to open the app.

Change settings later

Open the workspace detail page and click Settings while the workspace is stopped. You can change resources, folders, and environment variables. The template itself is fixed; create a new workspace if you need a different template.

Stop or delete

Click Stop when you are done using compute. Your /work files and the workspace home survive stop/start.

Click Delete only when you are finished with that workspace. Delete removes the workspace configuration. Its per-workspace home directory is archived (not deleted) into a recoverable location under your account. It does not remove your /work directory.