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Version: 0.11

CLI Usage

For all the implemented and planned CLI usage, please refer to these slides. We'll highlight several common CLI use cases of Badger in the following sections.

Get help

badger -h

Or shoot me an email!

Show metadata of Badger

To show the version number and some other metadata such as plugin directory:

badger

Get information of the algorithms

List all the available algorithms:

badger algo

Get the configs of a specific algorithm:

badger algo ALGO_NAME

You'll get something like:

name: silly
version: '0.1'
dependencies:
- numpy
params:
dimension: 1
max_iter: 42

Note that in order to use this plugin, you'll need to install the dependencies listed in the command output. This dependency installation will be handled automatically if the plugin was installed through the badger install command, but that command is not available yet (it is coming soon).

The params part shows all the intrinsic parameters that can be tuned when doing optimization with this algorithm.

Get information of the environments

List all the available environments:

badger env

Get the configs of a specific environment:

badger env ENV_NAME

The command will print out something like:

name: dumb
version: '0.1'
dependencies:
- numpy
- badger-opt
interface:
- silly
environments:
- silly
- naive
params: null
variables:
- q1: 0 -> 1
- q2: 0 -> 1
- q3: 0 -> 1
- q4: 0 -> 1
- s1: 0 -> 1
- s2: 0 -> 1
observations:
- l2
- mean
- l2_x_mean

There are several important properties here:

  • variables: The tunable variables provided by this environment. You could choose a subset of the variables as the desicion variables for the optimization in the routine config. The allowed ranges (in this case, 0 to 1) are shown behind the corresponding variable names
  • observations: The measurements provided by this environment. You could choose some observations as the objectives, and some other observations as the constraints in the routine config

Run and save an optimization

badger run [-h] -a ALGO_NAME [-ap ALGO_PARAMS] -e ENV_NAME [-ep ENV_PARAMS] -c ROUTINE_CONFIG [-s [SAVE_NAME]] [-y] [-v [{0,1,2}]]

The -ap and -ep optional arguments, and the -c argument accept either a .yaml file path or a yaml string. The configs set to -ap and -ep optional arguments should be treated as "patch" on the default algorithm and environment parameters, respectively, which means that you only need to specify the paramters that you'd like to change on top of the default configs, rather than pass in a full config. The content of the ROUTINE_CONFIG (aka routine configs) should look like this:

variables:
- x1: [-1, 0.5]
- x2
objectives:
- c1
- y2: MINIMIZE
constraints:
- y1:
- GREATER_THAN
- 0
- c2:
- LESS_THAN
- 0.5

The variables and objectives properties are required, while the constraints property is optional. Just omit the constraints property if there are no constraints for your optimization problem. The names listed in variables should come from variables of the env specified by the -e argument, while the names listed in objectives and constraints should come from observations of that env.

All optimization runs will be archived in the $BADGER_ARCHIVE_ROOT folder that you initially set up when running badger the first time.

Several example routine configs can be found in the examples folder.

Below are some example badger run commands. They are assumed to run under the parent directory of the examples folder (you'll need to clone the examples folder from this repo to your computer first). You could run them from any directory, just remember to change the routine config path accordingly.

A simplest run command

badger run -a silly -e TNK -c examples/silly_tnk.yaml

Run without confirmation

Badger will let you confirm the routine before running it. You could skip the confirmation by adding the -y option:

badger run -a silly -e TNK -c examples/silly_tnk.yaml -y

Change verbose level

By default, Badger will print out a table contains all the evaluated solutions along the optimization run (with the optimal ones highlighted), you could alter the default behavior by setting the -v option.

The default verbose level 2 will print out all the solutions:

badger run -a silly -e TNK -c examples/silly_tnk.yaml -v 2

The table would look like:

|    iter    |     c1     |     x2     |
----------------------------------------
| 1 | 3.73 | 2.198 |
| 2 | -0.9861 | 0.3375 |
| 3 | 1.888 | 1.729 |
| 4 | 2.723 | 1.955 |
| 5 | -1.092 | 0.08923 |
| 6 | 1.357 | 1.568 |
| 7 | 4.559 | 2.379 |
| 8 | 8.757 | 3.14 |
| 9 | 2.957 | 2.014 |
| 10 | 0.1204 | 1.105 |
| 11 | 2.516 | 1.902 |
| 12 | -0.01194 | 1.043 |
| 13 | 7.953 | 3.009 |
| 14 | -1.095 | 0.07362 |
| 15 | -0.3229 | 0.8815 |
| 16 | -1.096 | 0.06666 |
| 17 | 2.662 | 1.94 |
| 18 | 6.987 | 2.844 |
| 19 | -0.9734 | 0.3558 |
| 20 | 3.694 | 2.19 |
| 21 | -1.032 | 0.2613 |
| 22 | 2.441 | 1.882 |
| 23 | 7.042 | 2.853 |
| 24 | 4.682 | 2.405 |
| 25 | 0.5964 | 1.302 |
| 26 | 0.3664 | 1.211 |
| 27 | 1.966 | 1.751 |
| 28 | 0.2181 | 1.148 |
| 29 | 7.954 | 3.009 |
| 30 | -0.8986 | 0.4488 |
| 31 | -0.7536 | 0.5885 |
| 32 | 3.602 | 2.168 |
| 33 | 0.5527 | 1.286 |
| 34 | -0.6969 | 0.6349 |
| 35 | -1.094 | 0.07974 |
| 36 | -0.8758 | 0.4735 |
| 37 | 5.995 | 2.664 |
| 38 | 3.638 | 2.177 |
| 39 | 2.489 | 1.895 |
| 40 | 0.8434 | 1.394 |
| 41 | 0.4919 | 1.262 |
| 42 | -0.4929 | 0.7792 |
========================================

Verbose level 1 only prints out the optimal solutions along the run:

badger run -a silly -e TNK -c examples/silly_tnk.yaml -v 1

The table would look like:

|    iter    |     c1     |     x2     |
----------------------------------------
| 1 | 1.96 | 1.749 |
| 2 | -1.037 | 0.2518 |
| 18 | -1.1 | 0.01942 |
========================================

Verbose level 0 turns off the printing feature completely:

badger run -a silly -e TNK -c examples/silly_tnk.yaml -v 0

The table would not be printed.

Configure algorithm/environment parameters

The following two commands show how to config parameters of the algorithm/environment.

badger run -a silly -ap "dimension: 4" -e dumb -c examples/silly_dumb.yaml
badger run -a silly -ap "{dimension: 4, max_iter: 10}" -e dumb -c examples/silly_dumb.yaml

Run with algorithms provided by extensions

In order to run the following command, you'll need to set up xopt on your computer (since the algorithms are provided by xopt).

badger run -a cnsga -ap "max_generations: 10" -e TNK -c examples/cnsga_tnk.yaml

Save a run

To save a routine to database in $BADGER_DB_ROOT, just add the -s [SAVE_NAME] option. This command will run and save the routine with a randomly generated two-word name:

badger run -a silly -e TNK -c examples/silly_tnk.yaml -s

The following command will run the routine and save it as test_routine:

badger run -a silly -e TNK -c examples/silly_tnk.yaml -s test_routine

Rerun a saved optimization routine

Say we have the routine test_routine saved. List all the saved routines by:

badger routine

To get the details of some specific routine (say, test_routine):

badger routine test_routine

To rerun it, do:

badger routine test_routine -r

badger routine also supports the -y and -v options, as badger run does.

Configure Badger

If you would like to change some setting that you configured during the first time you run badger, you could do so with badger config.

List all the configurations:

badger config

To config a property:

badger config KEY

Where KEY is one of the keys in the configuration list.

Launch the Badger GUI

Badger supports a GUI mode. You can launch the GUI by:

badger -g