> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://igb.mit.edu/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://igb.mit.edu/mini-courses/research-computing-on-engaging-with-vscode.md).

# Research Computing on Engaging with VSCode

Engaging is a high-performance computing cluster managed by MIT's Office of Research Computing and Data (ORCD) which is freely available to the MIT community. Similar to [Luria](/computing-resources/luria-cluster.md), Engaging uses the Slurm scheduler for submitting jobs and has environment modules, Conda, and container support. Using Engaging should be highly familiar to anyone with experience using Luria.

Engaging is a modern cluster compared to Luria, which affords it some extra quality-of-life features. This documentation will discuss two of those features:

1. The Engaging OnDemand platform for using the cluster resources straight from your browser instead of exclusively over the terminal.
2. The ability to connect to Engaging from Visual Studio Code (VSCode), allowing you to use a modern text editing program to edit your files on Engaging.

While Engaging and Luria are similar, there are slight differences for achieving the same goal.

<table><thead><tr><th width="186"></th><th>Luria</th><th>Engaging</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Start an interactive session on a compute node</td><td><pre class="language-bash"><code class="lang-bash">srun --pty bash
</code></pre></td><td><pre class="language-bash"><code class="lang-bash">salloc
</code></pre></td></tr><tr><td>Use Conda</td><td><pre class="language-bash"><code class="lang-bash">module load miniconda3/v4
/home/software/conda/miniconda3/bin/condainit
</code></pre></td><td><pre class="language-bash"><code class="lang-bash">module load miniforge
</code></pre></td></tr><tr><td>Use containers</td><td><pre class="language-bash"><code class="lang-bash">module load singularity/3.10.3
singularity run docker://hello-world
</code></pre></td><td><pre class="language-bash"><code class="lang-bash">module load apptainer
apptainer run docker://hello-world
</code></pre></td></tr></tbody></table>