docs(devnotes): add Nemotron-Personas dev note

docs/notebook_source/README.md

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ In this folder you can find all our tutorial notebooks in `.py` format. They can
 make convert-execute-notebooks
 ```
 
-from the root of the repository. This will not only convert but also execute all of the notebooks -- for that to work, make sure you went through our [Quick Start](https://nvidia-nemo.github.io/DataDesigner/quick-start/) and have API keys set. A new folder `docs/notebooks` will be created, including `README.md` and `pyproject.toml` files.
+from the root of the repository. This will not only convert but also execute all of the notebooks -- for that to work, make sure you went through our [Quick Start](https://nvidia-nemo.github.io/DataDesigner/latest/quick-start/) and have API keys set. A new folder `docs/notebooks` will be created, including `README.md` and `pyproject.toml` files.
 
 Alternatively, you can use Jupytext directly
 

docs/scripts/generate_colab_notebooks.py

@@ -57,7 +57,30 @@ def mark_colab_injected(cell: NotebookNode) -> NotebookNode:
     return cell
 
 
-def create_colab_setup_cells(additional_dependencies: str) -> list[NotebookNode]:
+# Per-file try/except snippets appended into the standard NVIDIA_API_KEY cell
+# so additional API keys share the same imports rather than producing a
+# duplicate-imports cell. The snippets are joined with blank lines.
+NGC_API_KEY_BLOCK = """\
+try:
+    os.environ["NGC_API_KEY"] = userdata.get("NGC_API_KEY")
+except userdata.SecretNotFoundError:
+    os.environ["NGC_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter your NGC API key: ")"""
+
+# Optional per-file Colab setup cells, injected immediately after the standard
+# install + NVIDIA_API_KEY cells. Currently unused; left in place so future
+# tutorials can register additional one-shot Colab bootstrap cells.
+ADDITIONAL_SETUP_CELLS: dict[str, list[str]] = {}
+
+ADDITIONAL_API_KEY_BLOCKS: dict[str, list[str]] = {
+    "7-nemotron-personas.py": [NGC_API_KEY_BLOCK],
+}
+
+
+def create_colab_setup_cells(
+    additional_dependencies: str,
+    additional_setup_cell_sources: list[str] | None = None,
+    additional_api_key_blocks: list[str] | None = None,
+) -> list[NotebookNode]:
     """Create the Colab-specific setup cells to inject before imports."""
     cells = []
     cells += [mark_colab_injected(new_markdown_cell(source=COLAB_SETUP_MARKDOWN))]
@@ -67,7 +90,14 @@ def create_colab_setup_cells(additional_dependencies: str) -> list[NotebookNode]
         install_cell += f" {additional_dependencies}"
     cells += [mark_colab_injected(new_code_cell(source=install_cell))]
 
-    cells += [mark_colab_injected(new_code_cell(source=COLAB_API_KEY_CELL))]
+    api_key_cell = COLAB_API_KEY_CELL
+    if additional_api_key_blocks:
+        api_key_cell = "\n\n".join([api_key_cell, *additional_api_key_blocks])
+    cells += [mark_colab_injected(new_code_cell(source=api_key_cell))]
+
+    if additional_setup_cell_sources:
+        cells += [mark_colab_injected(new_code_cell(source=src)) for src in additional_setup_cell_sources]
+
     return cells
 
 
@@ -97,6 +127,8 @@ def process_notebook(notebook: NotebookNode, source_path: Path) -> NotebookNode:
     cells = notebook.cells
 
     additional_dependencies = ADDITIONAL_DEPENDENCIES.get(source_path.name, "")
+    additional_setup_cells = ADDITIONAL_SETUP_CELLS.get(source_path.name)
+    additional_api_key_blocks = ADDITIONAL_API_KEY_BLOCKS.get(source_path.name)
 
     # Find where to insert Colab setup (before "Import the essentials")
     import_idx = find_import_section_index(cells)
@@ -106,7 +138,11 @@ def process_notebook(notebook: NotebookNode, source_path: Path) -> NotebookNode:
         import_idx = 1
 
     # Insert Colab setup cells before the import section
-    colab_cells = create_colab_setup_cells(additional_dependencies)
+    colab_cells = create_colab_setup_cells(
+        additional_dependencies,
+        additional_setup_cells,
+        additional_api_key_blocks,
+    )
     processed_cells = cells[:import_idx] + colab_cells + cells[import_idx:]
 
     badge_source = COLAB_BADGE_TEMPLATE.format(filename=f"{source_path.stem}.ipynb")

fern/components/Figure.tsx

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+/**
+ * SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2024 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved.
+ * SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+ */
+
+/**
+ * Figure - Centered image with an optional NVIDIA-green italic caption.
+ *
+ * NOTE: Fern's custom component pipeline uses the automatic JSX runtime.
+ *
+ * Usage in MDX:
+ *   import { Figure } from "@/components/Figure";
+ *
+ *   <Figure src="/assets/foo.png" alt="..." width={600}>
+ *     Caption text with **inline markdown** if helpful.
+ *   </Figure>
+ */
+
+/**
+ * Figure styles, injected by the component rather than loaded via docs.yml `css:`.
+ * `css` is theme-owned, so under `global-theme: nvidia` a local `css:` list is
+ * dropped at publish — styling has to ship with the component. See fern/docs.yml
+ * and the same pattern in Authors.tsx.
+ */
+const FIGURE_CSS = `
+.devnote-figure {
+  text-align: center;
+  margin: 1.25rem 0;
+}
+.devnote-figure__img {
+  max-width: 100%;
+  height: auto;
+}
+.devnote-figure__caption {
+  display: block;
+  margin-top: 0.5rem;
+  color: #76B900;
+  font-size: 0.85em;
+  font-style: italic;
+  line-height: 1.4;
+}
+`;
+
+export interface FigureProps {
+  /** Image source path (e.g. "/assets/<slug>/foo.png"). */
+  src: string;
+  /** Alt text for accessibility. */
+  alt: string;
+  /** Optional explicit width in pixels (or any CSS length). */
+  width?: number | string;
+  /** Caption content; rendered only if children are provided. */
+  children?: React.ReactNode;
+}
+
+export const Figure = ({ src, alt, width, children }: FigureProps) => (
+  <div className="devnote-figure">
+    {/* static CSS string literal (no user input) — safe to inject as raw HTML */}
+    <style dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: FIGURE_CSS }} />
+    <img className="devnote-figure__img" src={src} alt={alt} width={width} />
+    {children && <em className="devnote-figure__caption">{children}</em>}
+  </div>
+);

fern/docs.yml

@@ -307,12 +307,14 @@ redirects:
     destination: "/nemo/datadesigner/plugins/example-plugin"
   # Dev Notes: mkdocs-material blog plugin URL shape.
   # Section title "Dev Notes" -> /dev-notes; intermediate posts/ directory dropped.
-  # Most posts kept their filename slug, but two were retitled during migration
+  # Most posts kept their filename slug, but three were retitled during migration
   # so their Fern page-title slug differs from the legacy filename:
   - source: "/nemo/datadesigner/devnotes/posts/text-to-sql"
     destination: "/nemo/datadesigner/dev-notes/text-to-sql-for-nemotron-super"
   - source: "/nemo/datadesigner/devnotes/posts/rqa"
     destination: "/nemo/datadesigner/dev-notes/rqa-dataset"
+  - source: "/nemo/datadesigner/devnotes/posts/nemotron-personas"
+    destination: "/nemo/datadesigner/dev-notes/designing-nemotron-personas"
   - source: "/nemo/datadesigner/devnotes/posts/:slug"
     destination: "/nemo/datadesigner/dev-notes/:slug"
   - source: "/nemo/datadesigner/devnotes/:slug"

fern/versions/latest.yml

@@ -145,6 +145,8 @@ navigation:
     contents:
       - page: Overview
         path: ./latest/pages/devnotes/index.mdx
+      - page: Designing Nemotron-Personas
+        path: ./latest/pages/devnotes/posts/nemotron-personas.mdx
       - page: Prompt Sensitivity
         path: ./latest/pages/devnotes/posts/prompt-sensitivity.mdx
       - page: Retriever SDG Toolkit

fern/versions/latest/pages/devnotes/index.mdx

@@ -9,6 +9,14 @@ import { BlogCard, BlogGrid } from "@/components/BlogCard";
 Welcome to NeMo Data Designer Dev Notes — in-depth guides, benchmark write-ups, and insights from the team building NeMo Data Designer.
 
 <BlogGrid>
+  <BlogCard
+    href="/dev-notes/designing-nemotron-personas"
+    title="Designing Nemotron-Personas"
+    description="The compound-AI pipeline behind Nemotron-Personas seeding Nemotron training. Now open-sourced: fork it, add your data, ship personas for any use case."
+    date="Jun 1, 2026"
+    authors={["ymeyer", "dcorneil"]}
+    image={<img src="/assets/nemotron-personas/nemotron-personas-world-map.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style={{ objectPosition: "top" }} />}
+  />
   <BlogCard
     href="/dev-notes/prompt-sensitivity"
     title="Mitigating Prompt Sensitivity"