Warmstarting SMAC

With the ask and tell interface, we can support warmstarting SMAC. We can communicate rich information about the previous trials to SMAC using TrialInfo and TrialValue instances.

We can communicate using the following objects:

class TrialValue:
    """Values of a trial.

    Parameters
    ----------
    cost : float | list[float]
    time : float, defaults to 0.0
    status : StatusType, defaults to StatusType.SUCCESS
    starttime : float, defaults to 0.0
    endtime : float, defaults to 0.0
    additional_info : dict[str, Any], defaults to {}
    """

class TrialInfo:
    """Information about a trial.

    Parameters
    ----------
    config : Configuration
    instance : str | None, defaults to None
    seed : int | None, defaults to None
    budget : float | None, defaults to None
    """

Usage Example

See examples/1_basics/8_warmstart.py.

from __future__ import annotations

from smac.scenario import Scenario
from smac.facade import HyperparameterOptimizationFacade
from ConfigSpace import Configuration, ConfigurationSpace, Float
from smac.runhistory.dataclasses import TrialValue, TrialInfo


class Rosenbrock2D:
    @property
    def configspace(self) -> ConfigurationSpace:
        cs = ConfigurationSpace(seed=0)
        x0 = Float("x0", (-5, 10), default=-3)
        x1 = Float("x1", (-5, 10), default=-4)
        cs.add([x0, x1])

        return cs

    def evaluate(self, config: Configuration, seed: int = 0) -> float:
        """The 2-dimensional Rosenbrock function as a toy model.
        The Rosenbrock function is well know in the optimization community and
        often serves as a toy problem. It can be defined for arbitrary
        dimensions. The minimium is always at x_i = 1 with a function value of
        zero. All input parameters are continuous. The search domain for
        all x's is the interval [-5, 10].
        """
        x1 = config["x0"]
        x2 = config["x1"]

        cost = 100.0 * (x2 - x1**2.0) ** 2.0 + (1 - x1) ** 2.0
        return cost


if __name__ == "__main__":
    SEED = 12345
    task = Rosenbrock2D()

    # Previous evaluations
    # X vectors need to be connected to the configuration space
    configurations = [
        Configuration(task.configspace, {'x0':1, 'x1':2}),
        Configuration(task.configspace, {'x0':-1, 'x1':3}),
        Configuration(task.configspace, {'x0':5, 'x1':5}),
    ]
    costs = [task.evaluate(c, seed=SEED) for c in configurations]

    # Define optimization problem and budget
    scenario = Scenario(task.configspace, deterministic=False, n_trials=30)
    intensifier = HyperparameterOptimizationFacade.get_intensifier(scenario, max_config_calls=1)
    smac = HyperparameterOptimizationFacade(
        scenario,
        task.evaluate,
        intensifier=intensifier,
        overwrite=True,

        # Modify the initial design to use our custom initial design
        initial_design=HyperparameterOptimizationFacade.get_initial_design(
            scenario,
            n_configs=0,  # Do not use the default initial design
            additional_configs=configurations  # Use the configurations previously evaluated as initial design
                                            # This only passes the configurations but not the cost!
                                            # So in order to actually use the custom, pre-evaluated initial design
                                            # we need to tell those trials, like below.
        )
    )

    # Convert previously evaluated configurations into TrialInfo and TrialValue instances to pass to SMAC
    trial_infos = [TrialInfo(config=c, seed=SEED) for c in configurations]
    trial_values = [TrialValue(cost=c) for c in costs]

    # Warmstart SMAC with the trial information and values
    for info, value in zip(trial_infos, trial_values):
        smac.tell(info, value)

    # Optimize as usual
    smac.optimize()

For more details on ask and tell consult advanced_usage/5_ask_and_tell.