Transfer data¶

This guide shows how to transfer data from a source database into the currently connected database.

# pip install 'lamindb[jupyter,bionty]'
!lamin init --storage ./test-transfer --modules bionty

import lamindb as ln

ln.track("ITeOtm7bhtdq")

Query all artifacts in the laminlabs/lamindata instance and filter them to their latest versions.

# query all latest artifact versions
artifacts = ln.Artifact.using("laminlabs/lamindata").filter(is_latest=True)

# convert the QuerySet to a DataFrame and show the latest 5 versions
artifacts.df().head()

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	uid	key	description	suffix	kind	otype	size	hash	n_files	n_observations	_hash_type	_key_is_virtual	_overwrite_versions	space_id	storage_id	schema_id	version	is_latest	run_id	created_at	created_by_id	_aux	branch_id
id
1282	WQtsc0CQZKB9GEst0000	None	Example R cars dataset	.parquet	dataset	DataFrame	2402.0	eIk8NXNiwMoGmhhjrMILbg	NaN	NaN	md5	True	False	1	2	NaN	None	True	460.0	2025-01-15 14:22:51.192955+00:00	30	None	1
1349	9KD0HE9lVveLpvuI0000	data/prep_adata	None	.h5ad	None	AnnData	124511524.0	gnwU_GFFN_xIhtncrxu-tv	NaN	NaN	sha1-fl	True	False	1	2	NaN	None	True	NaN	2025-03-03 23:24:56.184549+00:00	35	None	1
1451	cGi8QjXNQQfZzL4n0000	simple-lineage/figures/pca_all.pdf	None	.pdf	None	None	4707.0	QexvSEBGMa80m0pV5KXd4w	NaN	NaN	md5	True	False	1	2	NaN	None	True	569.0	2025-04-01 11:33:47.714024+00:00	9	None	1
1699	2qBNr2ICBnMS8JSC0000	mini_text_files/file32.txt	None	.txt	None	None	2.0	Y2TT8PSVtqudz407XG4LAQ	NaN	NaN	md5	False	False	1	2	NaN	None	True	669.0	2025-05-05 14:15:55.974243+00:00	9	None	1
1742	FoaS7BF8AZpt0Va80000	mini_text_files/file64.txt	None	.txt	None	None	2.0	6l0vHEYIIy4H06o9mY5RNQ	NaN	NaN	md5	False	False	1	2	NaN	None	True	669.0	2025-05-05 14:16:01.479023+00:00	9	None	1

You can now further subset or search the QuerySet. Here we query by whether the description contains “tabula sapiens”.

artifact = artifacts.filter(description__contains="Tabula Sapiens").first()
artifact.describe()

By saving the artifact record that’s currently attached to the source database instance, you transfer it to the default database instance.

artifact.save()

The artifact record has been transferred to the current database without feature & label annotations, but with updated data lineage.

artifact.describe()

You see that the data itself remained in the original storage location, which has been added to the current instance’s storage location as a read-only location (indicated by the fact that the instance_uid doesn’t match the current instance).

ln.Storage.df()

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	uid	root	description	type	region	instance_uid	space_id	run_id	created_at	created_by_id	_aux	branch_id
id
1	qRqXIfWYSC46	/home/runner/work/lamindb/lamindb/docs/test-tr...	None	local	None	1FHu5eE0uxm4	1	NaN	2025-07-21 11:33:26.069000+00:00	1	None	1
2	D9BilDV2	s3://lamindata	None	s3	us-east-1	4XIuR0tvaiXM	1	2.0	2023-04-22 05:50:06.537267+00:00	1	None	1

See the state of the database.

ln.view()

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****************

* module: core *

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Artifact

	uid	key	description	suffix	kind	otype	size	hash	n_files	n_observations	_hash_type	_key_is_virtual	_overwrite_versions	space_id	storage_id	schema_id	version	is_latest	run_id	created_at	created_by_id	_aux	branch_id
id
1	dPraor9rU1EofcFb6Wph	tabula_sapiens_lung.h5ad	Part of Tabula Sapiens, a benchmark, first-dra...	.h5ad	None	None	3899435772	8mB1KK2wd51F6HQdvqipcQ	None	None	sha1-fl	False	False	1	2	None	None	True	2	2023-07-14 19:00:30.621330+00:00	1	None	1

Run

	uid	name	started_at	finished_at	reference	reference_type	_is_consecutive	_status_code	space_id	transform_id	report_id	_logfile_id	environment_id	initiated_by_run_id	created_at	created_by_id	_aux	branch_id
id
1	1tVIrqFRWK5CZaIZ	None	2025-07-21 11:33:29.603830+00:00	None	None	None	None	-1.0	1	1	None	None	None	NaN	2025-07-21 11:33:29.604000+00:00	1	None	1
2	MyNiWAb8lpARJZaj	None	2025-07-21 11:33:32.034000+00:00	None	None	None	None	NaN	1	2	None	None	None	1.0	2025-07-21 11:33:32.034000+00:00	1	None	1

Storage

	uid	root	description	type	region	instance_uid	space_id	run_id	created_at	created_by_id	_aux	branch_id
id
1	qRqXIfWYSC46	/home/runner/work/lamindb/lamindb/docs/test-tr...	None	local	None	1FHu5eE0uxm4	1	NaN	2025-07-21 11:33:26.069000+00:00	1	None	1
2	D9BilDV2	s3://lamindata	None	s3	us-east-1	4XIuR0tvaiXM	1	2.0	2023-04-22 05:50:06.537267+00:00	1	None	1

Transform

	uid	key	description	type	source_code	hash	reference	reference_type	space_id	_template_id	version	is_latest	created_at	created_by_id	_aux	branch_id
id
2	4XIuR0tvaiXM0000	__lamindb_transfer__/4XIuR0tvaiXM	Transfer from `laminlabs/lamindata`	function	None	None	None	None	1	None	None	True	2025-07-21 11:33:32.027000+00:00	1	None	1
1	ITeOtm7bhtdq0000	transfer.ipynb	Transfer data	notebook	None	None	None	None	1	None	None	True	2025-07-21 11:33:29.592000+00:00	1	None	1

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* module: bionty *

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Source

	uid	entity	organism	name	in_db	currently_used	description	url	md5	source_website	space_id	dataframe_artifact_id	version	run_id	created_at	created_by_id	_aux	branch_id
id
1	33TUF039	bionty.Organism	vertebrates	ensembl	False	True	Ensembl	https://ftp.ensembl.org/pub/release-112/specie...	None	https://www.ensembl.org	1	None	release-112	None	2025-07-21 11:33:26.175000+00:00	1	None	1
2	6bbVUTCS	bionty.Organism	bacteria	ensembl	False	True	Ensembl	https://ftp.ensemblgenomes.ebi.ac.uk/pub/bacte...	None	https://www.ensembl.org	1	None	release-57	None	2025-07-21 11:33:26.175000+00:00	1	None	1
3	6s9nV6xh	bionty.Organism	fungi	ensembl	False	True	Ensembl	https://ftp.ensemblgenomes.ebi.ac.uk/pub/fungi...	None	https://www.ensembl.org	1	None	release-57	None	2025-07-21 11:33:26.175000+00:00	1	None	1
4	2PmTrc8x	bionty.Organism	metazoa	ensembl	False	True	Ensembl	https://ftp.ensemblgenomes.ebi.ac.uk/pub/metaz...	None	https://www.ensembl.org	1	None	release-57	None	2025-07-21 11:33:26.175000+00:00	1	None	1
5	7GPHh16S	bionty.Organism	plants	ensembl	False	True	Ensembl	https://ftp.ensemblgenomes.ebi.ac.uk/pub/plant...	None	https://www.ensembl.org	1	None	release-57	None	2025-07-21 11:33:26.175000+00:00	1	None	1
6	4tsksCMX	bionty.Organism	all	ncbitaxon	False	True	NCBItaxon Ontology	http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ncbitaxon/2023-...	None	https://github.com/obophenotype/ncbitaxon	1	None	2023-06-20	None	2025-07-21 11:33:26.175000+00:00	1	None	1
7	4UGNz3fr	bionty.Gene	human	ensembl	False	True	Ensembl	s3://bionty-assets/df_human__ensembl__release-...	None	https://www.ensembl.org	1	None	release-112	None	2025-07-21 11:33:26.175000+00:00	1	None	1

View lineage:

artifact.view_lineage()

The transferred dataset is linked to a special type of transform that stores the slug and uid of the source instance:

artifact.transform.description

The transform key has the form f"__lamindb_transfer__/{source_instance.uid}":

artifact.transform.key

The current notebook run is linked as the initiated_by_run of the “transfer run”:

artifact.run.initiated_by_run.transform

Upon re-transferring a record, it will identify that the record already exists in the target database and simply map the record.

artifact = artifacts.filter(description__contains="Tabula Sapiens").first()
artifact.save()

If you also want to transfer annotations of the artifact, you can pass transfer="annotations" to save(). Just note that this might populate your target database with metadata that doesn’t match the conventions you want to enforce.

artifact = artifacts.filter(description__contains="Tabula Sapiens").first()
artifact.save(transfer="annotations")

The artifact is now annotated.

artifact.describe()