Documentation around what happens with returns from cells and parameters to cells

[ari62]

Documentation is

• Missing
• Outdated
• Confusing
• Not sure?

Explain in Detail

Please explain somewhere in the docs what happens when a function annotated with @app.cell returns a variable and where parameters can come from. Is the variable added to global variables?
What are parameters used for, why not just access the global varibale in the app.cell function ? Is the last line in @app.cell the output? Is the return the output ? is there a difference ? Are parameters able to be any global variable? What happens if you return a variable with an underscore in front , is it still added to global, is it just outputted? Why return a variable anyway if its just to add it to globals (everything is already added to globals if it doesnt start with _)?

Your Suggestion for Changes

above

Will you submit a PR?

• Yes

[dmadisetti]

We have a fileformat tutorial which goes over some of this marimo tutorial fileformat (intro goes over private variables and other quirks)

https://github.com/marimo-team/marimo/blob/main/marimo/_tutorials/fileformat.py

But let us know where you looked, may we can put this somewhere more obvious?

[dmadisetti]

Hey @ari62 let me know, otherwise closing this out in the meantime