Nheengetá Notebooks
Polyglot notebooks powered by the .NET Interactive kernel — many tongues,
one notebook.
C# · F# · PowerShell · JavaScript · T-SQL · KQL · Python · R · Math · HTML · Mermaid · Markdown
About the name
Nheengetá — "many tongues", in Old Tupi.
Before Portuguese ever existed in Brazil, there was already the nheenga:
speech, the word, the tongue. The ancients said Nheengatu — "the good
tongue" — to name the language that bound different peoples into a single
understanding.
Nheengetá is born of the same spirit, turned inside out: instead of one
good tongue, many tongues at once, all running together under the same roof.
C#, F#, T-SQL, KQL, PowerShell, JavaScript, Python, R, HTML, Mermaid — and
the developer's own thinking out loud while experimenting — everything
speaking, everything being heard, everything answering on the spot.
A nheengatu polyglot is not someone who memorized words in several
languages. It is someone who can stand between them — translating, testing,
playing with an idea until it becomes certainty. That is the place
Nheengetá occupies in your editor: the interval between thinking and
confirming.
Why it exists
In 2026, Microsoft announced the deprecation of Polyglot Notebooks and .NET Interactive
— the only reasonably serious tool that existed for running C# interactively inside VS Code,
with rich output and database connectivity. No new features, no bug fixes, end of the line.
Nheengetá was born out of that gap — not as an official successor (it is an independent project,
with no affiliation to Microsoft), but as the answer of someone who missed having that kind of
scratchpad right there, inside the editor, and decided to build it again, from scratch, with a
more ambitious idea: not one interactive tongue, but several.
Twelve tongues, one notebook
Write each cell in the language that says it best — variables flow between the
.NET tongues, and every cell runs with a Shift+Enter:
| Tongue |
What you get |
| C# / F# |
Full .NET scripting with NuGet packages one line away |
| PowerShell |
Real automation, with the modules you already use |
| JavaScript |
Runs in Node — same runtime the debugger uses |
| T-SQL |
#!connect mssql once, query away (connector auto-installs) |
| KQL |
Kusto clusters, same one-line connect |
| Python / R |
Your local Jupyter kernels, bridged in |
| Math |
A CAS-flavored language: symbolic derivatives, matrices, units, complex numbers — results typeset in LaTeX (KaTeX), plots by Plotly |
| HTML / Mermaid / Markdown |
Rendered inline, instantly, offline |
What makes it different
- 🐞 Debug your cells. Set a breakpoint in the gutter, click the ladybug:
step, watch, inspect and edit values live — for JavaScript, Python and
PowerShell cells. (Notebook debugging: the thing notebook users always
wanted and rarely get.)
- ➗ Mathematics that looks like mathematics.
derivative("x^3+2x^2","x")
answers in typeset LaTeX; plot(["sin(x)","f(x)"]) gives an interactive
Plotly chart — hover values, zoom, PNG export. Functions persist across
cells. Zero setup, fully offline.
- 📦 One way to install anything.
#!use <package> at the top of a cell —
Nheengetá translates it to NuGet, npm, pip, PowerShell Gallery or CRAN
depending on the cell's language. There is a toolbar button for it too.
- ✨ AI on the cell, not in the way. One click sends the cell and its
error to the model of your choice (any Copilot/Language-Model provider);
apply the fix to the cell, insert it below, or read the full answer.
- 🧭 A toolbar that works for you. Colored, purpose-built buttons on every
code cell: language picker (with debuggable badges), run-to-here, debug,
ask-AI, add-package, copy/export output.
- 👁️ Live variables. A Variables panel per kernel — inspect, refresh on
every run, set values in the running session, and hover any variable in
a cell to see its current value.
- 📄 Plain-text notebooks.
.nhg is diff-friendly text (same cell layout
as .dib) — version control and code review just work.
- 🧩 Dual delivery. Standalone extension and embedded engine inside
DASE, where notebooks meet visual
data modeling.
Getting started
- Run
Nheengetá: New Nheengetá Notebook from the Command Palette.
- Write C# in the first cell and press
Shift+Enter.
- If the kernel is missing, accept the one-click install and run again.
Then open the guided samples in the repository: samples/hello.nhg
(all languages), samples/math-demo.nhg (CAS + plots),
samples/debug-demo.nhg (breakpoints), samples/deps-demo.nhg (#!use).
Requirements
- .NET SDK 8.0 or later.
- The
Microsoft.dotnet-interactive global tool — Nheengetá detects and
installs it for you on first run.
- Optional: a local Jupyter (
pip install jupyter) for Python/R cells;
GitHub Copilot (or another Language Model provider) for Ask AI.
License
MIT
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