Types of consoles

In the Consoles page you'll find links to start various types of console:

• Python using either the standard Python shell or IPython. If you've never tried IPython, check it out, it's pretty cool!
• Bash
• PyPy
• Custom consoles
• MySQL (on accounts created after 2026-01-15 (or 2026-01-08 in the EU system), paid feature)
• Postgres (paid feature)

For the available Python/IPython consoles, check the available Python versions for your system image.

Custom consoles are basically Bash commands which start a console with additional setup, like activating a virtual environment, exporting some environment variables, etc. For example, if you're developing a project which uses a virtualenv, you might want to have a console that opens an IPython shell with that venv activated. Such a command for a custom console would look like:

source virtualenvwrapper.sh && workon my_venv && ipython

If you want to start a custom Bash console which performs some set up actions at start, you could use a script like this:

#!/bin/bash --init-file

source ~/.bashrc
cd MyProjectDir
git status

After making the script executable, you can use it as a command that starts a new custom console -- it will source your .bashrc file, enter MyProjectDir and show output of the git status command at the start.