Link an artifact version to a collection

This page describes how to publish an artifact version to a registry collection so that other teams in your organization can discover and use it. To make an artifact version available to your organization, link it to a collection in the W&B Registry. Linking moves the version from a private, project-level scope to a shared, organization-level scope. You can link an artifact version programmatically with the W&B Python SDK or interactively in the W&B UI. When you link an artifact, W&B creates a reference between the source artifact and the collection entry. The linked version points to the source artifact version that was logged to a run within a project. You can view both the linked version in the collection and the source version in the project where it was logged.

Link an artifact to a collection

Choose a workflow based on whether you want to create the artifact during a run, create it without a run, or link an existing artifact version.

Before you start, check the following:

The types of artifacts that the collection permits. For more information about collection types, see “Collection types” within Create a collection.
The registry that the collection belongs to already exists. To check that the registry exists, navigate to the Registry App and search for the name of the registry.

Python SDK
W&B Registry
Artifact browser

Programmatically link an artifact version to a collection with wandb.Run.link_artifact() or wandb.Artifact.link().The following table summarizes the methods you can use to link an artifact version to a collection and what W&B records when you use each method.

Use case	Method	What W&B records
Create an artifact during a run and link it to a collection	`wandb.Run.link_artifact()`	Logs the artifact as an output of the active run, then links it
Create and link an artifact without explicitly starting a run	`wandb.Artifact.link()` on a draft artifact	Saves the artifact first; if no run is active, creates an automatic run
Link an existing committed artifact	`wandb.Artifact.link()` on an artifact from `wandb.Api().artifact()`	Links the artifact without creating a new run

Pass the destination collection path to the target_path parameter. The path consists of the wandb-registry- prefix, the registry name, and the collection name:

wandb-registry-[REGISTRY-NAME]/[COLLECTION-NAME]

Link an artifact from a run

Use wandb.Run.link_artifact() to create and link an artifact version during an active run. W&B logs draft artifacts as outputs of the run before linking them.To create and link an artifact version:

Initialize a run with wandb.init().
Create an Artifact object and add one or more files.
Call wandb.Run.link_artifact() and specify the destination collection.

Replace the bracketed placeholders with your own values:

import wandb

entity = "[TEAM-ENTITY]"          # Your team entity
project = "[PROJECT-NAME]"        # The name of the project that contains your artifact

# Initialize a run
with wandb.init(entity = entity, project = project) as run:

  # Create an artifact object
  # The type parameter specifies both the type of the 
  # artifact object and the collection type
  artifact = wandb.Artifact(name = "[NAME]", type = "[TYPE]")

  # Add the file to the artifact object. 
  # Specify the path to the file on your local machine.
  artifact.add_file(local_path = "[LOCAL-PATH-TO-ARTIFACT]")

  # Specify the collection and registry to link the artifact to
  REGISTRY_NAME = "[REGISTRY-NAME]"  
  COLLECTION_NAME = "[COLLECTION-NAME]"
  target_path=f"wandb-registry-{REGISTRY_NAME}/{COLLECTION_NAME}"

  # Link the artifact to the collection
  run.link_artifact(artifact = artifact, target_path = target_path)

Create and link an artifact

Use wandb.Artifact.link() to create and link a draft artifact without explicitly initializing a run. W&B creates an automatic run if needed to save the artifact before linking it.To create and link an artifact version:

Create an Artifact object and add one or more files.
Call wandb.Artifact.link() and specify the destination collection.

Replace the bracketed placeholders with your own:

import wandb

# Create an artifact object
# The type parameter specifies both the type of the 
# artifact object and the collection type
artifact = wandb.Artifact(name = "[NAME]", type = "[TYPE]")

# Add the file to the artifact object. 
# Specify the path to the file on your local machine.
artifact.add_file(local_path = "[LOCAL-PATH-TO-ARTIFACT]")

# Specify the collection and registry to link the artifact to
REGISTRY_NAME = "[REGISTRY-NAME]"  
COLLECTION_NAME = "[COLLECTION-NAME]"
target_path=f"wandb-registry-{REGISTRY_NAME}/{COLLECTION_NAME}"

# Link the artifact to the collection
artifact.link(target_path = target_path)

Link an existing artifact

Use wandb.Artifact.link() on an artifact fetched with wandb.Api().artifact() to link an existing committed artifact version without creating a new run.

Create a Public API client with wandb.Api().
Retrieve the artifact version with wandb.Api.artifact().
Call wandb.Artifact.link() and specify the destination collection.

import wandb

api = wandb.Api()

artifact = api.artifact(
    "[ENTITY]/[PROJECT]/[ARTIFACT-NAME]:[ALIAS-OR-VERSION]"
)

artifact.link(
    target_path="wandb-registry-[REGISTRY-NAME]/[COLLECTION-NAME]",
    aliases=["latest"],
)

Navigate to your project’s artifact browser on the W&B UI at: https://wandb.ai/[ENTITY]/[PROJECT]/artifacts
Select the Artifacts icon in the project sidebar.
Click the artifact version you want to link to your registry.
Within the Version overview section, click the Link to registry button.
From the modal that appears, select an artifact from the Select a registered model menu dropdown.
Click Next step.
Optional: Select an alias from the Aliases dropdown.
Click Link to registry.

You can view a linked artifact’s metadata, version data, usage, lineage information and more in the Registry App.

View linked artifacts in a registry

After you link an artifact version, it becomes available to your organization through the registry. View information about linked artifacts such as metadata, lineage, and usage information in the W&B Registry.

Navigate to the W&B Registry.
Select the name of the registry that you linked the artifact to.
Select the name of the collection.
If the collection’s artifacts log metrics, compare metrics across versions by clicking Show metrics.
From the list of artifact versions, select the version you want to access. W&B assigns version numbers incrementally to each linked artifact version, starting with v0.
To view details about an artifact version, click the version. From the tabs on this page, you can view that version’s metadata (including logged metrics), lineage, and usage information.

Record the Full Name field within the Version tab. The full name of a linked artifact consists of the registry, collection name, and the alias or index of the artifact version.

Full name of a linked artifact

wandb-registry-[REGISTRY-NAME]/[COLLECTION-NAME]:v[INTEGER]

You need the full name of a linked artifact to access the artifact version programmatically.

Troubleshooting

If you can’t link an artifact, check the following common issues:

Artifacts logged from a personal account

You can’t link artifacts logged to W&B with a personal entity to the registry. Make sure that you log artifacts with a team entity within your organization. Only artifacts logged within an organization’s team can be linked to the organization’s registry.

Ensure that you log an artifact with a team entity if you want to link that artifact to a registry.

Find your team entity

W&B uses the name of your team as the team’s entity. For example, if your team is called team-awesome, your team entity is team-awesome. To confirm the name of your team, follow these steps:

Navigate to your team’s W&B profile page.
Copy the site’s URL. It has the form https://wandb.ai/[TEAM], where [TEAM] is both the name of your team and the team’s entity.

Log from a team entity

Specify the team as the entity when you initialize a run with wandb.init(). If you don’t specify the entity when you initialize a run, the run uses your default entity, which may or may not be your team entity.
import wandb with wandb.init(entity='[TEAM-ENTITY]', project='[PROJECT-NAME]') as run: # Log your artifact here
Log the artifact to the run either with wandb.Run.log_artifact() or by creating an Artifact object and then adding files to it with:
artifact = wandb.Artifact(name="[ARTIFACT-NAME]", type="[TYPE]")
To log artifacts, see Construct artifacts.
If you logged an artifact to your personal entity, you need to re-log it to an entity within your organization.

Confirm the path of a registry in the W&B UI

Create an empty collection to confirm the path of the registry in the W&B UI. To do so, follow the steps below:

Navigate to the W&B Registry at https://wandb.ai/registry/.
Click the registry you want to link an artifact to.
Click the empty collection. If an empty collection doesn’t exist, create a new collection.
Within the code snippet that appears, identify the target_path field within .link_artifact().
Optional: Delete the collection.

For example, after you complete the previous steps, you find the code block with the target_path parameter:

target_path = 
      "smle-registries-bug-bash/wandb-registry-Golden Datasets/raw_images"

Break this down into its components to see what you need to use to create the path to link your artifact programmatically:

ORG_ENTITY_NAME = "smle-registries-bug-bash"
REGISTRY_NAME = "Golden Datasets"
COLLECTION_NAME = "raw_images"

Ensure that you replace the name of the collection from the temporary collection with the name of the collection that you want to link your artifact to.

Guides

Integrations

Reference

Link an artifact to a collection

Link an artifact from a run

Create and link an artifact

Link an existing artifact

View linked artifacts in a registry

Troubleshooting

Artifacts logged from a personal account

Find your team entity

Log from a team entity

Confirm the path of a registry in the W&B UI

​Link an artifact to a collection

Link an artifact from a run

Create and link an artifact

Link an existing artifact

​View linked artifacts in a registry

​Troubleshooting

​Artifacts logged from a personal account

​Find your team entity

​Log from a team entity

​Confirm the path of a registry in the W&B UI

Link an artifact to a collection

View linked artifacts in a registry

Troubleshooting

Artifacts logged from a personal account

Find your team entity

Log from a team entity

Confirm the path of a registry in the W&B UI