Environment setup for Snowpark Connect for Spark

Before you can develop Spark workloads with Snowpark Connect for Spark, you need to set up your development environment and configure a connection to Snowflake.

You can develop Snowpark Connect for Spark workloads in the following environments:

  • Local IDE: Use your preferred local tools such as VS Code, Jupyter Notebooks, IntelliJ, or a terminal. The snowpark-connect Python package is required for all languages. For Java and Scala projects, also add the snowpark-connect-java-client Maven dependency. These handle server lifecycle and session management automatically. You can also use open-source Spark libraries to connect directly to Snowflake’s hosted Spark Connect endpoint.

  • Snowflake Workspaces: Use Snowflake Notebooks running on warehouses or in workspaces. The snowpark-connect package is available as a notebook dependency.

For setup instructions, see the following topics: