Support serverless kernels, such as the Pyodide and Xeus kernels

[agriyakhetarpal]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I'd love if serverless kernels, i.e., those supported in JupyterLite, could be supported in the Zasper app.

The Pyodide kernel and the Xeus family of kernels are the currently supported specifications for JupyterLite.

Describe the solution you'd like

Serverless kernels are initialisable, loadable, and runnable in Zasper. The Xeus family also supports kernels for languages other than Python (e.g., C++, R, p5), so the xeus-python kernel could be a good starting point. The difference, for example, with the Pyodide kernel, is that the JS code for the extension is what initialises the Python interpreter via Pyodide, and it is hence not required to connect to a local Python runtime. The Xeus messaging protocol is compiled to WASM using the Emscripten toolchain. The Pyodide kernel is a plugin for JupyterLite. Additionally, IPython already works in JupyterLite, and the server-like component is simply a Lumino application distributed using static assets generated via jupyter lite build.

Describe alternatives you've considered

N/A

Additional context

This came from a conversation @prasunanand and I had on Slack, and we discussed that I should open an issue to track this request here. :)

[prasunanand]

Hi @agriyakhetarpal ,

Thanks for opening this Feature request. I am highly in favour of adding pyodide support. Running a Xeus kernel won't be a problem for zasper as the go backend will connect to Jupyter wire protocol compatible kernel.

The real challenge would be creating a session with Pyodide kernel.

I skimmed through pyodide code and pyodide kernel code. I think it can be done.

@jupyterlite/pyodide-kernel is what I would need to expose. I would be exploring this in coming weeks .

If you would want to take a shot at this , it would be really amazing :)

[prasunanand]

Xeus kernels are supported. It needs to be documented!