Preparing to use the SDK | Instabase AI Hub Documentation

Let’s cover some technical requirements and then dive into installing and authorizing the SDK.

Operating systems

You can use Linux, macOS, or Windows to write and run programs that use the SDK.

Python automatically handles all the main differences between these operating systems, so code from this tutorial—and any SDK-enabled programs you write—works on any OS.

Virtual environments

Many people do development work using a virtual environment manager such as venv, virtualenv, or miniconda. These tools install separate copies of Python that are isolated from your computer’s main Python instance. This ensures that any third-party libraries you install—such as AI Hub SDK—don’t affect your system’s main Python environment.

Setting up a virtual environment with any of these tools is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but is a recommended practice for safety.

Installing the SDK

If you’re using a virtual environment manager, switch to a newly created environment before proceeding. Continue to use that environment throughout this tutorial.

First, make sure you have Python 3.7 or later installed on your computer. Run this command in a terminal.

$ python3 --version

If you need a later version, refer to Python’s official installation instructions for your operating system.

The AI Hub SDK is distributed as a Python module called instabase-aihub that Instabase publishes to the PyPI software repository.

The easiest way to download and install the module is with Python’s built-in pip tool.

$ pip install instabase-aihub

It’s worth checking the AI Hub release notes occasionally to see if a new version of the SDK has been released.

To check the version of the installed SDK, run this command in a terminal.

$ pip show instabase-aihub

To upgrade to the latest version, run this command in a terminal.

$ pip install --upgrade instabase-aihub

The instabase-aihub module uses semantic versioning. This means upgrading to the latest version shouldn’t break your SDK-enabled programs unless the first digit of the version changes (such as upgrading from 0.11.0 to 1.0.2).

Troubleshooting installation

ERROR: pip's dependency resolver does not currently have a solution

The version of instabase-aihub that you’re trying to install has conflicts with another Python module that’s already installed. Solution: install the instabase-aihub module in a new virtual environment.

Any other problem

Re-run the pip command with maximum verbosity by adding the -v -v -v option to provide more information.

pip install -v -v -v instabase-aihub

pip install --upgrade -v -v -v instabase-aihub

Authorization

Whenever you use the SDK to control AI Hub, you must prove that you’re authorized to do so. Do this by providing three pieces of data: an API Key, an IB-Context, and an API Root.

API Key

Each AI Hub user has their own unique API key. In addition to proving that you’re authorized to use AI Hub, this also lets AI Hub keep track of which users perform specific operations.

API keys are 30-character random alphanumeric strings.

Learn more about creating an API key—also called an OAuth token—and return to this tutorial after creating your own token and saving it somewhere for safekeeping.

IB-Context

A single API Key can be associated with both an AI Hub community account and an AI Hub organization account. The IB-Context value (“IB” stands for Instabase) specifies which account performs an action—and incurs the consumption unit charge—triggered by an SDK request.

IB-Context values are usually either your user ID (john.doe) or your company name (acme-anvils).

This value is critical to get right, and there’s no default value that works for everyone. Learn more about finding your IB-Context value and then return to this tutorial.

API Root

The SDK needs to know which instance of AI Hub to submit your requests to. Specify the instance in the API Root value.

If you typically use the AI Hub instance at https://aihub.instabase.com, your API Root value is https://aihub.instabase.com/api.
If you use a dedicated, single-tenant instance of AI Hub such as https://my-organization.instabase.com, your API Root value is the AI Hub URL plus /api. For example, https://my-organization.instabase.com/api.

Next steps

Now that you understand how to install the SDK and collect the information for authorizing SDK operations, learn how to test if the SDK is installed and authorized correctly.