Add an Integration

Ludwig provides an open-ended method of third-party system integration. This makes it easy to integrate other systems or services with Ludwig without having users do anything other than adding a flag to the command line interface.

To contribute an integration, follow these steps:

1. Create a Python file in ludwig/contribs/ with an obvious name. In this example, it is called mycontrib.py.
2. Inside that file, create a class with the following structure, renaming MyContribution to a name that is associated with the third-party system:

class MyContribution():
    @staticmethod
    def import_call(argv, *args, **kwargs):
        # This is called when your flag is used before any other imports.

    def experiment(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/experiment.py and ludwig/cli.py

    def experiment_save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/experiment.py

    def train_init(self, experiment_directory, experiment_name, model_name,
                   resume, output_directory):
        # See: ludwig/train.py

    def train(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/train.py and ludwig/cli.py

    def train_model(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/train.py

    def train_save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/train.py

    def train_epoch_end(self, progress_tracker):
        # See: ludwig/models/model.py

    def predict(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/predict.py and ludwig/cli.py

    def predict_end(self, test_stats):
        # See: ludwig/predict.py

    def test(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/test.py and ludwig/cli.py

    def visualize(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See: ludwig/visualize.py and ludwig/cli.py

    def visualize_figure(self, fig):
        # See ludwig/utils/visualization_utils.py

    def serve(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See ludwig/utils/serve.py and ludwig/cli.py

    def collect_weights(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See ludwig/collect.py and ludwig/cli.py

    def collect_activations(self, *args, **kwargs):
        # See ludwig/collect.py and ludwig/cli.py

If your integration does not handle a particular action, you can simply remove the method, or do nothing (e.g., pass).

If you would like to add additional actions not already handled by the above, add them to the appropriate calling location, add the associated method to your class, and add them to this documentation. See existing calls as a pattern to follow.

1. In the file ludwig/contribs/__init__.py add an import in this pattern, using your names:

from .mycontrib import MyContribution

1. In the file ludwig/contribs/__init__.py in the contrib_registry["classes"] dictionary, add a key/value pair where the key is your flag, and the value is your class name, like:

contrib_registry = {
    ...,
    "classes": {
        ...,
        "myflag": MyContribution,
    }
}

1. Submit your contribution as a pull request to the Ludwig github repository.