githubtocolab: Open GitHub Notebooks in Colab

githubtocolab.com is a small utility for opening GitHub-hosted Jupyter notebooks in Google Colab.

If you are looking at a notebook on GitHub, replace github.com with githubtocolab.com in the URL. The service redirects the notebook to Colab.

Demo of replacing github.com with githubtocolab.com and opening the notebook in Colab.

https://github.com/jax-ml/jax/blob/main/docs/notebooks/Common_Gotchas_in_JAX.ipynb

becomes:

https://githubtocolab.com/jax-ml/jax/blob/main/docs/notebooks/Common_Gotchas_in_JAX.ipynb

which opens:

https://colab.research.google.com/github/jax-ml/jax/blob/main/docs/notebooks/Common_Gotchas_in_JAX.ipynb

Why this exists

Google Colab already supports opening notebooks from GitHub, but the direct Colab URL is longer and harder to remember.

Colab’s built-in GitHub URL pattern for opening notebooks.

I originally made githubtocolab.com as a mnemonic shortcut: take a GitHub notebook URL, add tocolab after github, and go directly to Colab.

The original implementation was intentionally simple. githubtocolab.com redirected the root page to a blog post explaining the project, and redirected notebook-shaped paths to Colab. The migration keeps that simple mental model, but moves the service from a hand-managed server to Cloudflare Pages/Functions so it is easier to maintain.

How to use it

1. Replace `github.com` with `githubtocolab.com`

Start with a GitHub notebook URL shaped like this:

https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/blob/<branch>/<path>/<notebook>.ipynb

Change only the hostname:

https://githubtocolab.com/<owner>/<repo>/blob/<branch>/<path>/<notebook>.ipynb

githubtocolab.com will redirect to the matching Colab URL.

2. Use the landing-page converter

The landing page also includes a converter. Paste a GitHub notebook URL, and it shows both:

the githubtocolab.com shortcut URL
the direct colab.research.google.com/github/... URL

The landing page is meant to stay focused on the tool itself: a short explanation, examples, the converter, and the bookmarklet.

3. Use the bookmarklet

The landing page includes an Open in Colab bookmarklet. Drag it to your bookmarks bar, then click it while viewing a GitHub .ipynb file.

The bookmarklet skips the githubtocolab.com redirect and opens the equivalent Colab URL directly. It is useful if you want a one-click action from the GitHub page itself.

Migration

The first version was a tiny DigitalOcean/NGINX redirect that I set up while learning the basics of domains, DNS, server hosting, redirects, and HTTPS.

That was a useful way to learn, but it is more operational machinery than this service needs. A redirect utility with a static landing page and a small amount of URL validation fits better on Cloudflare Pages/Functions.

The old service redirected nearly every non-root path to Colab. The Cloudflare version is intentionally a little stricter:

Case	Behavior
`/owner/repo/blob/main/notebook.ipynb`	Redirects to the matching Colab URL
nested `.ipynb` paths	Preserves the full path after `/blob/`
non-notebook paths	Shows a friendly error page instead of redirecting blindly
malformed paths	Shows the expected URL shape
`/` or `/about`	Shows the landing page and converter