Reading a Simulation's History

# Imports (run once)
from typing import Iterator
from air_sdk import AirApi, SimState
from air_sdk.endpoints import Simulation
from air_sdk.types import HistoryEntry

# Authentication (run once)
api = AirApi.with_ngc_config()
# OR api = AirApi.with_api_key(api_key="...")
# OR api = AirApi.with_device_login(email="...", org_num="...")
#    ^ use in terminal only — not supported in Jupyter notebooks

Simulation History Feature

The Simulation History feature is designed to automatically log events each time a simulation (api.endpoints.Simulation) is created and during key operations on the simulation such as adding a ZTP script or the enabling/disabling of automatic OOB.

Accessing Simulation History

To retrieve the history associated with a specific simulation, use the list_history method available on the Simulation object; this returns an iterator of read-only HistoryEntry dicts. The following are optional filtering parameters that may be passed to the list_history method:

• severity
• actor
• label — only return entries carrying a given label (e.g. label='publishing')
• search
• ordering
• limit
• offset

list_history is also available on Node, Image, and MarketplaceDemo objects — each reads its own resource’s history. Publishing-lifecycle actions on images and marketplace demos (publish/unpublish/approve/deny/visibility changes) are recorded with the publishing label, so resource.list_history(label='publishing') returns just those entries.

Note: Simulation also exposes an older get_history() method that reads the legacy flat history endpoint (returning History objects with category/tags). It is deprecated in favor of list_history() and emits a DeprecationWarning.

Immutability of History Instances

History instances are immutable and cannot be instantiated directly by clients. This ensures the integrity and consistency of the historical data. As a result, History instances may not be refreshed or deleted by clients.

Creating and Listing History

# Create a simulation with a JSON import
json_data = {
    'format': 'JSON',
    'name': 'JSON Sim',
    'content': {
        'nodes': {
            'node1': {
                'cpu': 2,
                'memory': 1024,
                'storage': 10,
                'os': 'generic/ubuntu2204',
                'cpu_arch': 'x86',
            },
        },
        'oob': False,
    },
}
sim: Simulation = api.simulations.import_from_data(**json_data)
print('waiting for simulation to finish importing...', end='')
sim.wait_for_state(SimState.INACTIVE, error_states=SimState.INVALID)
# Add a ZTP Script
ztp_script_path = '../files/ztp/basic_script.sh'
with open(ztp_script_path, 'r') as f:
    sim.create_ztp_script(content=f.read())
# Enable automatic OOB
sim.enable_auto_oob()

waiting for simulation to finish importing....

Now that a simulation has been created and operations have been performed on the simulation, the history of the simulation may be retrieved and viewed.

history_iter: Iterator[HistoryEntry] = sim.list_history(ordering='created')
entries = list(history_iter)
for entry in entries:
    print(
        entry['actor'].ljust(12),
        f'({entry["created"].strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f")}):',
        entry['description'],
    )

Jensen Huang (2025-04-07 18:38:09.223522): Simulation `JSON Sim` with ID `2311ab4d-f522-48e9-85c2-0f985e7207d9` created by importing a topology in `JSON` format. Topology is scheduled for validation.
NVIDIA Air   (2025-04-07 18:38:09.227707): Initiating topology validation.
NVIDIA Air   (2025-04-07 18:38:09.034142): Validation complete. Initiating creation of simulation objects.
NVIDIA Air   (2025-04-07 18:38:11.450142): Topology successfully imported.
NVIDIA Air   (2025-04-07 18:38:11.453826): Transitioning from `IMPORTING` to `INACTIVE` state.
Jensen Huang (2025-04-07 18:38:12.910011): ZTP script added.
Jensen Huang (2025-04-07 18:38:14.220142): Enabled automatic OOB

entries[-1] if entries else None

{'object_id': '2311ab4d-f522-48e9-85c2-0f985e7207d9',
 'model': 'simulation',
 'created': datetime.datetime(2025, 4, 7, 18, 38, 14, 380638, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc),
 'actor': 'Jensen Huang',
 'description': 'Enabled automatic OOB',
 'severity': 'INFO',
 'labels': []}

Building Filter UIs with get_history_filters

To discover the values you can filter a resource’s history by, call get_history_filters(). It returns the distinct actors, severities, and labels present across that resource’s history — the options that would populate a filter dropdown:

filters = sim.get_history_filters()
# {'actors': ['Jensen Huang', 'NVIDIA Air'], 'severities': ['INFO'], 'labels': []}
# The same method is available on images and marketplace demos:
image_filters = image.get_history_filters()

Like list_history, this method is available on Simulation, Image, and MarketplaceDemo.