A “Hello World” example¶

It is time to introduce the most basic elements of Kedro. We have split a small example into sections to discuss each of the concepts with code.

You can copy the example as one chunk of code from the bottom of this page.

Note

We do not create a Kedro project in this first example, but illustrate the concepts within a single .py file.

Node¶

A node is a Kedro concept. It is a wrapper for a Python function that names the inputs and outputs of that function. It is the building block of a pipeline. Nodes can be linked when the output of one node is the input of another.

Here, the return_greeting function is wrapped by a node called return_greeting_node, which has no inputs, and names a single output (my_salutation):

from kedro.pipeline import node

# Prepare first node
def return_greeting():
    return "Hello"

return_greeting_node = node(func=return_greeting, inputs=None, outputs="my_salutation")

The join_statements function is wrapped by a node called join_statements_node, which names a single input (my_salutation) and a single output (my_message):

# Prepare second node
def join_statements(greeting):
    return f"{greeting} Kedro!"


join_statements_node = node(
    join_statements, inputs="my_salutation", outputs="my_message"
)

Note that my_salutation is the output of return_greeting_node and also the input of join_statements_node.

Pipeline¶

A pipeline organises the dependencies and execution order of a collection of nodes, and connects inputs and outputs while keeping your code modular. The pipeline determines the node execution order by resolving dependencies and does not necessarily run the nodes in the order in which they are passed in.

In this example the pipeline executes return_greeting_node before it executes join_statements_node:

from kedro.pipeline import pipeline

# Assemble nodes into a pipeline
greeting_pipeline = pipeline([return_greeting_node, join_statements_node])

DataCatalog¶

A DataCatalog is a Kedro concept. It is the registry of all data sources that the project can use. It maps the names of node inputs and outputs as keys in a DataSet, which is a Kedro class that can be specialised for different types of data storage. Kedro uses a MemoryDataSet for data that is simply stored in-memory.

from kedro.io import DataCatalog, MemoryDataSet

# Prepare a data catalog
data_catalog = DataCatalog({"my_salutation": MemoryDataSet()})

Kedro provides a number of different built-in datasets for different file types and file systems so you don’t have to write the logic for reading/writing data.

Runner¶

The Runner is an object that runs the pipeline. Kedro resolves the order in which the nodes are executed:

Kedro first executes return_greeting_node. This runs return_greeting, which takes no input but outputs the string “Hello”.
The output string is stored in the MemoryDataSet named my_salutation.
Kedro then executes the second node, join_statements_node. This loads the my_salutation dataset and injects it into the join_statements function.
The function joins the input salutation with “Kedro!” to form the output string “Hello Kedro!”
The output of the pipeline is returned in a dictionary with key my_message.

Hello Kedro!¶

It’s now time to stitch the code together. Here is the full example:

"""Contents of hello_kedro.py"""
from kedro.io import DataCatalog, MemoryDataSet
from kedro.pipeline import node, pipeline
from kedro.runner import SequentialRunner

# Prepare a data catalog
data_catalog = DataCatalog({"my_salutation": MemoryDataSet()})

# Prepare first node
def return_greeting():
    return "Hello"


return_greeting_node = node(return_greeting, inputs=None, outputs="my_salutation")

# Prepare second node
def join_statements(greeting):
    return f"{greeting} Kedro!"


join_statements_node = node(
    join_statements, inputs="my_salutation", outputs="my_message"
)

# Assemble nodes into a pipeline
greeting_pipeline = pipeline([return_greeting_node, join_statements_node])

# Create a runner to run the pipeline
runner = SequentialRunner()

# Run the pipeline
print(runner.run(greeting_pipeline, data_catalog))

Then open a terminal and run the following command:

python hello_kedro.py

You should see {'my_message': 'Hello Kedro!'} printed to the console.