mlflow

MLflow: ML Lifecycle Management Platform

When to Use This Skill

Use MLflow when you need to:

• Track ML experiments with parameters, metrics, and artifacts
• Manage model registry with versioning and stage transitions
• Deploy models to various platforms (local, cloud, serving)
• Reproduce experiments with project configurations
• Compare model versions and performance metrics
• Collaborate on ML projects with team workflows
• Integrate with any ML framework (framework-agnostic)

Users: 20,000+ organizations | GitHub Stars: 23k+ | License: Apache 2.0

Installation

# Install MLflow
pip install mlflow

# Install with extras
pip install mlflow[extras]  # Includes SQLAlchemy, boto3, etc.

# Start MLflow UI
mlflow ui

# Access at http://localhost:5000

Quick Start

Basic Tracking

import mlflow

# Start a run
with mlflow.start_run():
    # Log parameters
    mlflow.log_param("learning_rate", 0.001)
    mlflow.log_param("batch_size", 32)

    # Your training code
    model = train_model()

    # Log metrics
    mlflow.log_metric("train_loss", 0.15)
    mlflow.log_metric("val_accuracy", 0.92)

    # Log model
    mlflow.sklearn.log_model(model, "model")

Autologging (Automatic Tracking)

import mlflow
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier

# Enable autologging
mlflow.autolog()

# Train (automatically logged)
model = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=100, max_depth=5)
model.fit(X_train, y_train)

# Metrics, parameters, and model logged automatically!

Core Concepts

1. Experiments and Runs

Experiment: Logical container for related runs Run: Single execution of ML code (parameters, metrics, artifacts)

import mlflow

# Create/set experiment
mlflow.set_experiment("my-experiment")

# Start a run
with mlflow.start_run(run_name="baseline-model"):
    # Log params
    mlflow.log_param("model", "ResNet50")
    mlflow.log_param("epochs", 10)

    # Train
    model = train()

    # Log metrics
    mlflow.log_metric("accuracy", 0.95)

    # Log model
    mlflow.pytorch.log_model(model, "model")

# Run ID is automatically generated
print(f"Run ID: {mlflow.active_run().info.run_id}")