This walkthrough demonstrates how to create, track, and use a dataset artifact.
1. Log into Weights & Biases
Import the W&B library and log in to Weights & Biases. You will need to sign up for a free Weights & Biases account if you have not done so already.
2. Initialize a run
Use wandb.init() to initialize a run. This generates a background process to sync and log data. Provide a project name and a job type:
3. Create an artifact object
Create an artifact object with the wandb.Artifact(). Provide a name for the artifact and a description of the file type for the name and type parameters, respectively.
For example, the following code snippet demonstrates how to create an artifact called ‘bicycle-dataset’ with a ‘dataset’ label:
For more information about how to construct an artifact, see Construct artifacts.
4. Add the dataset to the artifact
Add a file to the artifact. Common file types include models and datasets. The following example adds a dataset named dataset.h5 that is saved locally on our machine to the artifact:
Replace the filename dataset.h5 in the previous code snippet with the path to the file you want to add to the artifact.
5. Log the dataset
Use the W&B run objects wandb.Run.log_artifact() method to both save your artifact version and declare the artifact as an output of the run.
A 'latest' alias is created by default when you log an artifact. For more information about artifact aliases and versions, see Create a custom alias and Create new artifact versions, respectively.
Putting this together, you script so far should look like this:
6. Download and use the artifact
The following code example demonstrates the steps you can take to use an artifact you have logged and saved to the Weights & Biases servers.
- First, initialize a new run object with
wandb.init().
- Second, use the run objects
wandb.Run.use_artifact() method to tell Weights & Biases what artifact to use. This returns an artifact object.
- Third, use the artifacts
wandb.Artifact.download() method to download the contents of the artifact.
Alternatively, you can use the Public API (wandb.Api) to export (or update data) data already saved in Weights & Biases outside of a Run. See Track external files for more information. Last modified on September 30, 2026