Overview
Guild Compare is a curses based application that you run from the command line. It’s convenient both for local and remote comparisons as it works equally well over ssh.
Use Guild Compare to view runs in a spreadsheet format including flags and scalar values.
Guild Compare shows runs in a spreadsheet format
Tip Guild Compare runs in terminals across SSH connections. It’s convenient for viewing results on remote servers without having to run servers or copy files.
Start Guild Compare
To start Guild Compare, run:
guild compare
This shows all available runs. You can limit the runs using filters like operation, status, and start time. For a list of filters, see guild compare.
Interactive Mode
By default, Guild Compare runs in interactive mode. It runs as an application that lets you explore runs using key commands.
For a list of supported key commands, press ? when running in interactive mode.
Below are common actions you perform in interactive mode.
| Navigate | Use the arrow keys to move the active cell to different rows and columns. |
| Sort runs by a column | Use the arrow keys to navigate to the column you want to sort by. Press 1 to sort in ascending order or 2 for descending. |
| Refresh the display with the latest information | Press r (for refresh) at any point to show the latest information. Guild does not automatically update the display. |
| View run details | Press Enter to view details for a selected run. Press q to exit the detail window. |
| List key bindings | Press ? to show the list of key bindings. To exit the list, press q. |
| Exit | Press q to exit Guild Compare. |
Export Data
You can use Guild Compare to generate a CSV file with run data.
To export data to a CSV file, use the --csv option.
guild compare --csv runs.csv
Writes runs compare data to runs.csv
To print the CSV contents to the console, use - for the file name:
guild compare --csv -
Prints runs compare data to the console
Compare Tools
Guild supports tool extensions that let you compare runs using different tools.
To compare runs using a tool extension, use the --tool option with the tool name.
For example, to compare runs using HiPlot, run:
guild compare --tool hiplot
Supported tools:
| hiplot | Use HiPlot to compare runs. |
Refer to the sections below for detail on each tool.
HiPlot
HiPlot is a visualization tool developed by Facebook used to discover correlations and patterns in high-dimensional data. It has a high performance parallel plots graphing engine that can be used as an alternative to TensorBoard’s HParams plugin.
Compare runs using Facebook’s HiPlot visualization tool
To use HiPlot with Guild Compare, first install the HiPlot Python library:
pip install hiplot
Verify that the hiplot-render program is installed:
hiplot-render --help
If you get an error, confirm that HiPlot is installed correctly. Refer to Installing HiPlot for help.
To use HiPlot with Guild Compare, run:
guild compare --tool hiplot
Use the HIPLOT_RENDER environment variable to specify an alternative location to the hiplot-render program. This is useful when running HiPlot from a location that isn’t on your system path.