Coop

Coop is a platform for creating, storing and sharing AI-based research. It is fully integrated with EDSL, allowing you to post, download and update objects directly from your workspace or at the Coop web app.

Coop also provides access to special features for running EDSL surveys and storing results remotely at the Expected Parrot server. Learn more about these features in the Remote Inference and Remote Caching sections of the documentation.

How it works

Create an account to get access to the Coop API, which allows you to:

Post content at the Coop web app (surveys, agents, results, notebooks, etc.)
Choose the visibility of your content: public, private or unlisted
Update, download, delete, store and share content and projects

Then activate Remote Inference to run surveys on the Expected Parrot server. This allows you to avoid needing to manage your own API keys for language models. You can also activate Remote Caching to automatically store survey results on the Expected Parrot server and access them from anywhere.

Getting started

1. Create an account

Create a Coop account.

2. Store your Expected Parrot API key

Navigate to the API Settings page of your account and copy your Expected Parrot API key. Then add the following line to your .env file in your edsl working directory:

EXPECTED_PARROT_API_KEY='your_api_key_here'

This will save your Expected Parrot API key as an environment variable that EDSL can access. You can regenerate your key (and update your .env file) at any time.

3. Choose how to access language models

Decide how you want to use models:

Choose from any available models at the Expected Parrot server:

Activate Remote Inference at the API Settings page of your Coop account.

or

Use models your own:

Store your own API Keys for language models.

4. Create EDSL objects and notebooks

Create notebooks and other objects in EDSL: Agent, Question, Survey, Job, Results, Cache, etc. See sections of the documentation for different object types for more information about creating objects in EDSL.

5. Post content to the Coop

Post objects to the Coop using the edsl.coop module and methods. See below for details and examples for uploading, downloading, updating and deleting content on the Coop.

6. Choose the visibility of your content

You can set the visibility of an object when you post it to the Coop or update it later. There are 3 options:

public: Visible to everyone
private: Visible to logged in users that you have granted access
unlisted: Visible to anyone with the link but not listed in search results (default)

See below for details on setting and changing the visibility of an object.

7. Explore content

Search other content at the Coop. Copy code and examples to modify or rerun them.

Methods

Uploading

There are 2 methods for uploading/posting an object to the Coop:

Calling the push() method on the object directly
Calling the create() method on a Coop client object and passing it the object

You can optionally pass a description and/or visibility parameter at the same time: public, private or unlisted (default). These can be changed at any time.

Direct method

Here we post a question object by calling the push() method on it:

from edsl import QuestionMultipleChoice

q = QuestionMultipleChoice.example()
q.push()

This will return information about the object that has been posted, including the URL for viewing it at the Coop web app and the uuid for the object which you can use to access it later. We can see that the object is unlisted by default:

{'description': None,
'object_type': 'question',
'url': 'https://www.expectedparrot.com/content/c543744e-08a2-48a1-a021-bfc292bac1b3',
'uuid': 'c543744e-08a2-48a1-a021-bfc292bac1b3',
'version': '0.1.34',
'visibility': 'unlisted'}

Here we post the same object with a description and visibility:

from edsl import QuestionMultipleChoice

q = QuestionMultipleChoice.example()
q.push(description="This is an example question", visibility="public")

We can see the description and visibility status that we specified in the information that is returned:

{'description': 'This is an example question',
'object_type': 'question',
'url': 'https://www.expectedparrot.com/content/9c628bc6-d2ec-4160-85e0-f8aa3aae4aa1',
'uuid': '9c628bc6-d2ec-4160-85e0-f8aa3aae4aa1',
'version': '0.1.34',
'visibility': 'public'}

Using a Coop client

Here we post the same question by passing it to the create() method of a Coop client object:

from edsl import Coop, QuestionMultipleChoice

q = QuestionMultipleChoice.example()
c = Coop()
c.create(q)

Here we include a description and visibility status:

from edsl import Coop, QuestionMultipleChoice

q = QuestionMultipleChoice.example()
c = Coop()
c.create(object=q, description="This is an example question", visibility="public")

This will return the same information about the object as the direct method shown above (with a unique uuid and URL for viewing the object at the Coop web app).

Updating

There are 3 methods for updating/editing an object to the Coop:

Editing the object at the Coop web app
Calling the patch() method on the object directly
Calling the patch() method on a Coop client object

For each patch() method, pass the uuid of the object and the parameter(s) that you want to update: description, visibility and/or value.

The description parameter is used to update the description of an object, such as a question or survey.
The visibility parameter is used to update the visibility of an object: public, private or unlisted.
The value parameter is used to update the content of an object, such as the text of a question or the code in a notebook.

At the Coop web app

You can manually update the description or visibility of an object at the Coop web app:

Navigate to the Explore page and select an object: https://www.expectedparrot.com/content/explore

Go to the object’s page (double-click on the object):

Select the option to change the visibility of the object (public, private or unlisted) or to edit the object:

Change the visibility of an object on the Coop

Direct method

Here we update the description and visibility of the question created and uploaded in the examples above by calling the patch() method on it:

q.patch(uuid="c543744e-08a2-48a1-a021-bfc292bac1b3",
        description="This is an updated question",
        visibility="public")

This will return a status message:

{'status': 'success'}

Here we change the question itself by modifying the value parameter:

from edsl import QuestionFreeText

new_q = QuestionFreeText.example()
q.patch(uuid="c543744e-08a2-48a1-a021-bfc292bac1b3",
        value=new_q)

Using a Coop client

Here we do the same using a Coop client object:

from edsl import Coop

c = Coop()
c.patch(uuid="c543744e-08a2-48a1-a021-bfc292bac1b3",
        description="This is an updated question",
        visibility="public")

This will return the same status message as above.

Replicating / Downloading

There are a variety of methods for replicating or downloading an object at the Coop:

Selecting options to download or copy code at the Coop web app
Calling the pull() method on the class of the object
Calling the get() method on a Coop client object

Copy code at the Coop web app

The Coop web app provides copyable code for downloading or reconstructing an object that has been posted:

Navigate to Explore and select an object: https://www.expectedparrot.com/content/explore
Go to the object’s page
Select the option to Download the object

OR

Select the Code view of the object, and then Pull (to get the code for pulling the object using its uuid) or Raw (to get the code for constructing the object):

Get code for pulling or reconstructing an object on the Coop

Get code for reconstructing an object on the Coop

Use this code in your workspace to download the object locally or to reconstruct it.

Class method

Here we download the question posted above by calling the pull() method on the object class (Question) and passing the uuid of the object:

from edsl import Question

q = Question.pull("c543744e-08a2-48a1-a021-bfc292bac1b3")
q

This will return the object (the example free text question that replaced the example multiple choice question):

{
    "question_name": "how_are_you",
    "question_text": "How are you?",
    "question_type": "free_text"
}

Using a Coop client

Here we download the question by calling the get() method on a Coop client object:

from edsl import Coop

c = Coop()
q = c.get(uuid="c543744e-08a2-48a1-a021-bfc292bac1b3")
q

This will return the same object as above.

Deleting

There are 3 methods for deleting an object from the Coop:

Selecting options to delete at the Coop web app
Calling the delete() method on the class of the object
Calling the delete() method on a Coop client object

At the Coop web app

You can manually delete objects at the Coop web app:

Navigate to Explore and select an object: https://www.expectedparrot.com/content/explore (see image above for Uploading content)
Go to the object’s page (double-click on the object)
Select the option to delete the object:

Directly

Here we delete a question object by calling the delete() method on the class of the object (Question) and passing the uuid of the object:

from edsl import Question

Question.delete("1234abcd-abcd-1234-abcd-1234abcd1234")

This will return a status message:

{'status': 'success'}

Using a Coop client

Here we delete a question by calling the delete() method on a Coop client object, passing the uuid of the object:

from edsl import Coop

c = Coop()
c.delete(uuid="1234abcd-abcd-1234-abcd-1234abcd1234")

This will return the same status message as above (so long as the object was not already deleted).

Feature requests

If you have a feature request for the Coop, please let us know! There are several ways to do this:

Create an issue on GitHub
Post a message on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/mxAYkjfy9m
Send an email: info@expectedparrot.com