Fast Capture of Cell-Level Provenance in Numpy

Abstract

Effective provenance tracking enhances reproducibility, governance, and data quality in array workflows. However, significant challenges arise in capturing this provenance, including: (1) rapidly evolving APIs, (2) diverse operation types, and (3) large-scale datasets. To address these challenges, this paper presents a prototype annotation system designed for arrays, which captures cell-level provenance specifically within the numpy library. With this prototype, we explore straightforward memory optimizations that substantially reduce annotation latency. We envision this provenance capture approach for arrays as part of a broader governance system for tracking for structured data workflows and diverse data science applications.