nemo-automodel-recipe-development

Files (5)

• BENCHMARK.md
• SKILL.md
• evals.json · evals/
• skill-card.md
• skill.oms.sig

SKILL.md (first lines)

# NeMo AutoModel Recipe Development
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## Instructions

For recipe questions, answer with the smallest complete path to action:

1. Name the relevant recipe file or YAML section.
2. List the builder functions or config keys involved.
3. Include a minimal YAML or command example when the question asks how to
   configure something.
4. End with a local validation command or tiny CPU-compatible test.

For conceptual recipe questions, answer from this skill without inspecting the
repository or loading other AutoModel skills unless the user asks you to edit
files. Keep the response focused on recipe YAML, builders, CLI routing, tests,
and local validation.

Use these compact answer patterns for common questions:

- New finetuning recipe variant: start from the closest file under
  `nemo_automodel/recipes/`, update the model, dataset or dataloader,
  optimizer, loss, LR scheduler, step scheduler, and checkpoint builders,
  register a recipe alias only if adding a new recipe class, add example
  YAML under `examples/`, then add a tiny CPU-compatible unit test and run
  `automodel <config.yaml>`.
- `_target_` fields: describe `_target_` as the fully qualified Python callable,
  explain that sibling keys become keyword arguments, show optimizer and dataset
  examples, and mention nested CLI overrides such as `--optimizer.lr`.
- Validation and checkpointing: name `step_scheduler.val_check_interval`,
  `step_scheduler.checkpoint_interval`, `validation_dataset`,
  `restore_from.path`, and consolidated safetensors; include the minimal YAML
  snippet from this skill.

For validation and checkpointing, always name:

- `step_scheduler.val_check_interval` for validation cadence.
- `step_scheduler.checkpoint_interval` for save cadence.
- `validation_dataset` as the validation dataloader source.
- `restore_from.path` for resume.
- Consolidated safetensors as the default checkpoint format for HF ecosystem
  compatibility.

## Routing Boundary

Use this skill for recipe construction and execution-flow questions: YAML
structure, `_target_` callables, builder functions, validation datasets,
checkpoint configuration, CLI route registration, and recipe-specific tests.

Do not use this skill for standalone distributed strategy selection, cluster
launcher configuration, or model architecture onboarding unless the user is
asking how those choices appear inside an AutoModel recipe YAML.

## Recipe Architecture

### Execution Flow

```
CLI (automodel config.yaml)
  -> app.py resolves the config's recipe target
    -> recipe script (e.g. train_ft.py) main(config_path)
      -> Recipe class .setup() builds all components
        -> .run_train_validation_loop() executes training
```

### Recipe Class

Recipes inherit from `BaseRecipe` and implement two methods:

- `setup()` -- builds model, optimizer, dataloader, loss, LR scheduler, step scheduler, and checkpoint config via builder functions.
- `run_train_validation_loop()` -- executes the training and validation loop.

### Builder Pattern

All components are constructed through dedicated builder functions:

- `build_model()` -- instantiates the model from config
- `build_optimizer()` -- creates optimizer (AdamW, etc.)
- `build_dataloader()` -- sets up train and validation dataloaders
- `build_loss_module()` -- creates the loss function
- `build_lr_scheduler()` -- creates the learning rate scheduler
- `build_step_scheduler()` -- creates the step scheduler controlling training progression
- `CheckpointingConfig` -- configures checkpointing (built directly from the YAML `checkpoint:` block via `RecipeConfig.checkpoint`)

### Infrastructure Application Order

Components are applied in this strict order after building:

1. PEFT (LoRA, etc.)
2. FP8 quantization
3. QAT (quantization-aware training)
4. Checkpoint load / restore
5. Parameter freezing
6. Sharding (FSDP2, Megatron-FSDP, DDP)
7. Device placement
8. `torch.compile`
9. Context parallelism hooks

## YAML Config Anatomy

A complete recipe config follows this structure:

```yaml
step_scheduler:
  max_steps: 1000
  num_epochs: 1
  grad_accumulation_steps: 4
  val_check_interval: 100
  checkpoint_interval: 500
  log_interval: 10

dist_env:
  master_addr: localhost
  master_port: 29500

rng:
  seed: 42

model:

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