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Renku Release | July 2026 • Renku Jobs, Coding Agents & Custom Environments from Private Repos

· 5 min read
Elisabet Capon
Elisabet Capon
Renku Community Manager
Rok Roškar
Rok Roškar
Renku Team Lead
Laura Kinkead
Laura Kinkead
Renku Product Manager

This release extends Renku beyond interactive sessions. You can now submit a job that runs the same code, in the same environment, against the same data — without holding a browser tab open. Also in these releases: custom environments from private code repositories, coding agents in your sessions and dedicated pages for data connectors.

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Renku's data connectors and code repository integrations make it quick to run an exploratory analysis, but as a project matures and tasks run longer, the interactive session becomes the constraint. As a result, you move the project to your laptop or a cluster, or fall back on tricks to keep the session alive. Renku Jobs, in release 2.19.0, removes that constraint.

🚀 Run Non-Interactive Jobs​

A single Renku project can now carry work from first exploration through to long training runs. An ML engineer can run model-training jobs while a domain expert tests the resulting model in a notebook or dashboard, with all data and code staying in the same place.

You can create a Job launcher right next to your Session launchers, in two ways:

  • From your existing code: Take a project you've already been working in and run it as a job. Choose "build from code," point to the same repository that defines your interactive environment, and specify one extra field: the command to run.

  • From an external image: Already have a Docker image you run elsewhere? Bring it to Renku as an external environment, set your command and arguments, and run it on Renku compute, even if it has no interactive front end.

Session launcher selector

How it works: A Job launcher has a Submit button instead of Launch. When you submit, a modal lets you review the job command and resource class, and tweak them for that run only, before it goes. The job then appears on your project page, where you can view logs, cancel it, and track its runtime. Unlike sessions, a single Job launcher can run many jobs at once within your resource pool's limits.

Project launchers

For more details on the new Jobs feature, have a look at the documentation.

🔒 Custom Environment from Private Code Repositories​

Starting from release 2.18.0 you can build images for sessions and jobs from private code repositories, not just public ones. You no longer need to create ad-hoc public repositories just to build an image. Images built from your repository are kept private too, so proprietary code and dependencies stay contained within your project rather than being exposed.

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Be aware that only collaborators with read access to your private code repository will be able to launch a session or start a job from it.

private code repository environments

Huge thanks to our collaborators at Idiap, whose work made this functionality possible! 🙌

🤖 Using Coding Agents in Renku​

A Renku session is a clean, isolated environment - exactly where a coding agent works best, with your credentials and data kept contained. You can now bring an agent into your session by building the environment from code: add a project.toml file to the repository you build your image from, and Renku sets the agent up for you. We currently support Claude, Codex, and Pi.

Renku also picks up your agent-specific configuration. If your repository includes a config folder for your agent (.claude, .pi, or .codex), Renku brings it into your session, so your custom skills and plugins come along automatically.

Want to see it in action? Explore the coding agents example project for a working setup you can copy from.

🔗 Dedicated Pages for Data Connectors​

Projects aren't the only things with their own page anymore: now every data connector has a dedicated page too. From it, you can modify the connector's settings, explore its metadata, and see exactly which projects the connector is used in.

To access the data connector page, click a data connector to open its side-panel, then click the "Open full page" icon in the top right.

data connector pages

🔧 Under the Hood: Fixes & Performance​

Alongside these features, we shipped a range of smaller fixes, administrator improvements, and performance tweaks across these releases. For the full technical breakdown, see our GitHub Releases page.

🐸 Ready to get started? Hop into renkulab.io and get a jumpstart with our documentation.

💬 We love to hear your feedback! Share questions, ideas, and suggestions with us on our forum.

📺 Prefer a walkthrough? Watch the Renku feature preview on YouTube.

🚀 Curious about what's coming next? Check out our roadmap to see what new features we're working on.