[FIXED] Stale environment variables in Jupyter Notebooks running in vscode using a conda environment kernel

Issue

I'm using jupyter inside a conda environment in vscode on Ubuntu and all works great. However, recently I've experienced issues with AWS access tokens expiring inside my jupyter notebook.

It seems that these access tokens get cached at some level, either in the code environment or somewhere in the jupyter layer, but I couldn't figure out where and how to clean it up.

Example:

I'm using aws-vault to generate SSO credentails, that can be accessed in the environment.

After starting a session, I can access the AWS_SESSION_EXPIRATION from my terminal:

echo $AWS_SESSION_EXPIRATION

2022-04-20T17:40:36Z

when I start vscode, open a terminal, I get the same.

When I activate my environment, and run

python -c "import os;print(os.environ['AWS_SESSION_EXPIRATION'])"

I get the same.

However, when I open a new jupyter notebook and select the same environment, and run

import os
print(os.environ['AWS_SESSION_EXPIRATION'])

I get

2022-04-06T11:09:03Z

I've tried locating any files that could cache the env variables either in the conda env or jupyter extension. I've also tried restarting vscode and the machine itself - all without success.

Can anyone help me clean this up?

Thanks!!

Edit:

Another example:

If I set in my terminal

export FOO=BAR

then I can access $FOO as expected through the terminal and jupy notebook within vscode.

Then I close vscode, run

unset FOO

reboot the machine, start vscode new and open a new notebook with the same conda environment.

Within, running

import os
print(os.environ['FOO'])

STILL returns BAR

Solution

There seems to be an issue in the vscode-jupyter extension, that somehow stores the environment variables in the kernel.json file.

At the moment of writing this, the issue is still open. Working in ubuntu, this workaround from the issue's thread works for me:

1. Close code completely
2. find ~/.vscode/extensions/ms-toolsai.jupyter*
3. code .
4. Run a notebook and it will pick up the changes.

Answered By - Val