Skip to content

Commit 363197c

Browse files
qingyun-wusonichi
andauthored
Blendsearch documentation (#81)
* blendsearch documentation Co-authored-by: Chi Wang <wang.chi@microsoft.com>
1 parent e5123f5 commit 363197c

2 files changed

Lines changed: 29 additions & 19 deletions

File tree

README.md

Lines changed: 22 additions & 16 deletions
Original file line numberDiff line numberDiff line change
@@ -21,7 +21,22 @@ and learner selection method invented by Microsoft Research.
2121
FLAML leverages the structure of the search space to choose a search order optimized for both cost and error. For example, the system tends to propose cheap configurations at the beginning stage of the search,
2222
but quickly moves to configurations with high model complexity and large sample size when needed in the later stage of the search. For another example, it favors cheap learners in the beginning but penalizes them later if the error improvement is slow. The cost-bounded search and cost-based prioritization make a big difference in the search efficiency under budget constraints.
2323

24-
FLAML is easy to use:
24+
## Installation
25+
26+
FLAML requires **Python version >= 3.6**. It can be installed from pip:
27+
28+
```bash
29+
pip install flaml
30+
```
31+
32+
To run the [`notebook example`](https://github.com/microsoft/FLAML/tree/main/notebook),
33+
install flaml with the [notebook] option:
34+
35+
```bash
36+
pip install flaml[notebook]
37+
```
38+
39+
## Quickstart
2540

2641
* With three lines of code, you can start using this economical and fast
2742
AutoML engine as a scikit-learn style estimator.
@@ -43,20 +58,11 @@ from flaml import tune
4358
tune.run(train_with_config, config={…}, low_cost_partial_config={…}, time_budget_s=3600)
4459
```
4560

46-
## Installation
47-
48-
FLAML requires **Python version >= 3.6**. It can be installed from pip:
49-
50-
```bash
51-
pip install flaml
52-
```
53-
54-
To run the [`notebook example`](https://github.com/microsoft/FLAML/tree/main/notebook),
55-
install flaml with the [notebook] option:
61+
## Advantages
5662

57-
```bash
58-
pip install flaml[notebook]
59-
```
63+
* For classification and regression tasks, find quality models with lower computational resources.
64+
* Users can choose their desired customizability: minimal customization (computational resource budget), medium customization (e.g., scikit-style learner, search space and metric), full customization (arbitrary training and evaluation code).
65+
* Allow human guidance in hyperparameter tuning to respect prior on certain subspaces but also able to explore other subspaces.
6066

6167
## Examples
6268

@@ -121,7 +127,7 @@ And they can be used in distributed HPO frameworks such as ray tune or nni.
121127

122128
For more technical details, please check our papers.
123129

124-
* [FLAML: A Fast and Lightweight AutoML Library](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/flaml-a-fast-and-lightweight-automl-library/). Chi Wang, Qingyun Wu, Markus Weimer, Erkang Zhu. In MLSys, 2021.
130+
* [FLAML: A Fast and Lightweight AutoML Library](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/flaml-a-fast-and-lightweight-automl-library/). Chi Wang, Qingyun Wu, Markus Weimer, Erkang Zhu. MLSys, 2021.
125131
```
126132
@inproceedings{wang2021flaml,
127133
title={FLAML: A Fast and Lightweight AutoML Library},
@@ -131,7 +137,7 @@ For more technical details, please check our papers.
131137
}
132138
```
133139
* [Frugal Optimization for Cost-related Hyperparameters](https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.01571). Qingyun Wu, Chi Wang, Silu Huang. AAAI 2021.
134-
* [Economical Hyperparameter Optimization With Blended Search Strategy](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/economical-hyperparameter-optimization-with-blended-search-strategy/). Chi Wang, Qingyun Wu, Silu Huang, Amin Saied. To appear in ICLR 2021.
140+
* [Economical Hyperparameter Optimization With Blended Search Strategy](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/economical-hyperparameter-optimization-with-blended-search-strategy/). Chi Wang, Qingyun Wu, Silu Huang, Amin Saied. ICLR 2021.
135141

136142
## Contributing
137143

flaml/tune/README.md

Lines changed: 7 additions & 3 deletions
Original file line numberDiff line numberDiff line change
@@ -161,10 +161,14 @@ tune.run(...
161161
)
162162
```
163163

164-
Recommended scenario: cost-related hyperparameters exist, a low-cost
164+
- Recommended scenario: cost-related hyperparameters exist, a low-cost
165165
initial point is known, and the search space is complex such that local search
166166
is prone to be stuck at local optima.
167167

168+
169+
- Suggestion about using larger search space in BlendSearch:
170+
In hyperparameter optimization, a larger search space is desirable because it is more likely to include the optimal configuration (or one of the optimal configurations) in hindsight. However the performance (especially anytime performance) of most existing HPO methods is undesirable if the cost of the configurations in the search space has a large variation. Thus hand-crafted small search spaces (with relatively homogeneous cost) are often used in practice for these methods, which is subject to idiosyncrasy. BlendSearch combines the benefits of local search and global search, which enables a smart (economical) way of deciding where to explore in the search space even though it is larger than necessary. This allows users to specify a larger search space in BlendSearch, which is often easier and a better practice than narrowing down the search space by hand.
171+
168172
For more technical details, please check our papers.
169173

170174
* [Frugal Optimization for Cost-related Hyperparameters](https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.01571). Qingyun Wu, Chi Wang, Silu Huang. AAAI 2021.
@@ -178,7 +182,7 @@ For more technical details, please check our papers.
178182
}
179183
```
180184

181-
* [Economical Hyperparameter Optimization With Blended Search Strategy](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/economical-hyperparameter-optimization-with-blended-search-strategy/). Chi Wang, Qingyun Wu, Silu Huang, Amin Saied. To appear in ICLR 2021.
185+
* [Economical Hyperparameter Optimization With Blended Search Strategy](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/economical-hyperparameter-optimization-with-blended-search-strategy/). Chi Wang, Qingyun Wu, Silu Huang, Amin Saied. ICLR 2021.
182186

183187
```
184188
@inproceedings{wang2021blendsearch,
@@ -187,4 +191,4 @@ For more technical details, please check our papers.
187191
year={2021},
188192
booktitle={ICLR'21},
189193
}
190-
```
194+
```

0 commit comments

Comments
 (0)