recommended libraries

neocarto · September 8, 2026, 11:35am

In the Notebooks System Guide (https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/notebooks-system-guide), there is a list of recommended libraries and sample datasets. However, it does not include all the libraries that were available by default in Observable v1, such as Vega, Leaflet, Lodash, Arquero, etc.

Does this mean that these libraries will no longer be available by default?

tomlarkworthy · September 8, 2026, 8:48pm

yeah I think so and I think it is better because those baked libraries added quite a lot of page load overheads and were also very difficult to upgrade (e.g. duckdb)

mbostock · September 8, 2026, 10:01pm

That documentation is not intended to be an exhaustive list. The set of recommended libraries hasn’t changed and you can see the full list here:

github.com/observablehq/notebook-kit

src/runtime/stdlib/recommendedLibraries.ts

main

export const _ = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/lodash/+esm").then((_) => _.default);
export const aq = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/arquero/+esm");
export const Arrow = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/apache-arrow@17.0.0/+esm");
export const d3 = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/d3/+esm");
export const dot = () => import("./dot.js").then((_) => _.dot);
export const duckdb = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@duckdb/duckdb-wasm@1.32.0/+esm");
export const DuckDBClient = () => import("./duckdb.js").then((_) => _.DuckDBClient);
export const echarts = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/echarts/+esm");
export const Flechette = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@uwdata/flechette/+esm");
export const htl = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/htl/+esm");
export const html = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/htl/+esm").then((_) => _.html);
export const svg = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/htl/+esm").then((_) => _.svg);
export const Inputs = () => import("./inputs.js");
export const L = () => import("./leaflet.js");
export const mapboxgl = () => import("./mapboxgl.js").then((_) => _.default);
export const md = () => import("./md.js").then((_) => _.md);
export const mermaid = () => import("./mermaid.js").then((_) => _.mermaid);
export const Plot = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@observablehq/plot/+esm");
export const React = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/react/+esm");
export const ReactDOM = () => import("https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/react-dom/+esm");

This file has been truncated. show original

There’s also a list of sample datasets:

github.com/observablehq/notebook-kit

src/runtime/stdlib/sampleDatasets.ts

main

export const aapl = () => csv(dataset("aapl.csv"), true);
export const alphabet = () => csv(dataset("alphabet.csv"), true);
export const cars = () => csv(dataset("cars.csv"), true);
export const citywages = () => csv(dataset("citywages.csv"), true);
export const diamonds = () => csv(dataset("diamonds.csv"), true);
export const flare = () => csv(dataset("flare.csv"), true);
export const industries = () => csv(dataset("industries.csv"), true);
export const miserables = () => json(dataset("miserables.json"));
export const olympians = () => csv(dataset("olympians.csv"), true);
export const penguins = () => csv(dataset("penguins.csv"), true);
export const pizza = () => csv(dataset("pizza.csv"), true);
export const weather = () => csv(dataset("weather.csv"), true);

function dataset(name: string): string {
  return `https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@observablehq/sample-datasets/${name}`;
}

async function json(url: string) {
  const response = await fetch(url);
  if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`unable to fetch ${url}: status ${response.status}`);

This file has been truncated. show original

None of these are loaded by default; they’re only loaded if you reference them, so it doesn’t add any overhead.

neocarto · September 14, 2026, 8:57am

Why not use MapLibre instead of Mapbox?
Have you considered integrating Turf.js by default?

Topic		Replies	Views
Observable Framework: where did Penguins come from?? Help	2	307	February 15, 2024
Including Arquero as Recommended Library Feedback	1	462	July 3, 2021
Observable for research - (advanced) statistics Uncategorized	24	2868	June 23, 2021
Geoviz with Observable 2.0 Show and tell	2	111	September 10, 2026
I want to learn D3. I don`t want to learn Observable. Is that ok? Help	55	39776	January 25, 2021

recommended libraries

Related topics