axolotl
Expert guidance for fine-tuning LLMs with Axolotl - YAML configs, 100+ models, LoRA/QLoRA, DPO/KTO/ORPO/GRPO, multimodal support
Best use case
axolotl is best used when you need a repeatable AI agent workflow instead of a one-off prompt.
Expert guidance for fine-tuning LLMs with Axolotl - YAML configs, 100+ models, LoRA/QLoRA, DPO/KTO/ORPO/GRPO, multimodal support
Teams using axolotl should expect a more consistent output, faster repeated execution, less prompt rewriting, better workflow continuity with your supporting tools.
When to use this skill
- You want a reusable workflow that can be run more than once with consistent structure.
- You already have the supporting tools or dependencies needed by this skill.
When not to use this skill
- You only need a quick one-off answer and do not need a reusable workflow.
- You cannot install or maintain the underlying files, dependencies, or repository context.
Installation
Claude Code / Cursor / Codex
Manual Installation
- Download SKILL.md from GitHub
- Place it in
.claude/skills/fine-tuning-axolotl/SKILL.mdinside your project - Restart your AI agent — it will auto-discover the skill
How axolotl Compares
| Feature / Agent | axolotl | Standard Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Support | Not specified | Limited / Varies |
| Context Awareness | High | Baseline |
| Installation Complexity | Unknown | N/A |
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this skill do?
Expert guidance for fine-tuning LLMs with Axolotl - YAML configs, 100+ models, LoRA/QLoRA, DPO/KTO/ORPO/GRPO, multimodal support
Where can I find the source code?
You can find the source code on GitHub using the link provided at the top of the page.
Related Guides
Best AI Skills for Claude
Explore the best AI skills for Claude and Claude Code across coding, research, workflow automation, documentation, and agent operations.
ChatGPT vs Claude for Agent Skills
Compare ChatGPT and Claude for AI agent skills across coding, writing, research, and reusable workflow execution.
AI Agents for Coding
Browse AI agent skills for coding, debugging, testing, refactoring, code review, and developer workflows across Claude, Cursor, and Codex.
SKILL.md Source
# Axolotl Skill
Comprehensive assistance with axolotl development, generated from official documentation.
## When to Use This Skill
This skill should be triggered when:
- Working with axolotl
- Asking about axolotl features or APIs
- Implementing axolotl solutions
- Debugging axolotl code
- Learning axolotl best practices
## Quick Reference
### Common Patterns
**Pattern 1:** To validate that acceptable data transfer speeds exist for your training job, running NCCL Tests can help pinpoint bottlenecks, for example:
```
./build/all_reduce_perf -b 8 -e 128M -f 2 -g 3
```
**Pattern 2:** Configure your model to use FSDP in the Axolotl yaml. For example:
```
fsdp_version: 2
fsdp_config:
offload_params: true
state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
auto_wrap_policy: TRANSFORMER_BASED_WRAP
transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: LlamaDecoderLayer
reshard_after_forward: true
```
**Pattern 3:** The context_parallel_size should be a divisor of the total number of GPUs. For example:
```
context_parallel_size
```
**Pattern 4:** For example: - With 8 GPUs and no sequence parallelism: 8 different batches processed per step - With 8 GPUs and context_parallel_size=4: Only 2 different batches processed per step (each split across 4 GPUs) - If your per-GPU micro_batch_size is 2, the global batch size decreases from 16 to 4
```
context_parallel_size=4
```
**Pattern 5:** Setting save_compressed: true in your configuration enables saving models in a compressed format, which: - Reduces disk space usage by approximately 40% - Maintains compatibility with vLLM for accelerated inference - Maintains compatibility with llmcompressor for further optimization (example: quantization)
```
save_compressed: true
```
**Pattern 6:** Note It is not necessary to place your integration in the integrations folder. It can be in any location, so long as it’s installed in a package in your python env. See this repo for an example: https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/diff-transformer
```
integrations
```
**Pattern 7:** Handle both single-example and batched data. - single example: sample[‘input_ids’] is a list[int] - batched data: sample[‘input_ids’] is a list[list[int]]
```
utils.trainer.drop_long_seq(sample, sequence_len=2048, min_sequence_len=2)
```
### Example Code Patterns
**Example 1** (python):
```python
cli.cloud.modal_.ModalCloud(config, app=None)
```
**Example 2** (python):
```python
cli.cloud.modal_.run_cmd(cmd, run_folder, volumes=None)
```
**Example 3** (python):
```python
core.trainers.base.AxolotlTrainer(
*_args,
bench_data_collator=None,
eval_data_collator=None,
dataset_tags=None,
**kwargs,
)
```
**Example 4** (python):
```python
core.trainers.base.AxolotlTrainer.log(logs, start_time=None)
```
**Example 5** (python):
```python
prompt_strategies.input_output.RawInputOutputPrompter()
```
## Reference Files
This skill includes comprehensive documentation in `references/`:
- **api.md** - Api documentation
- **dataset-formats.md** - Dataset-Formats documentation
- **other.md** - Other documentation
Use `view` to read specific reference files when detailed information is needed.
## Working with This Skill
### For Beginners
Start with the getting_started or tutorials reference files for foundational concepts.
### For Specific Features
Use the appropriate category reference file (api, guides, etc.) for detailed information.
### For Code Examples
The quick reference section above contains common patterns extracted from the official docs.
## Resources
### references/
Organized documentation extracted from official sources. These files contain:
- Detailed explanations
- Code examples with language annotations
- Links to original documentation
- Table of contents for quick navigation
### scripts/
Add helper scripts here for common automation tasks.
### assets/
Add templates, boilerplate, or example projects here.
## Notes
- This skill was automatically generated from official documentation
- Reference files preserve the structure and examples from source docs
- Code examples include language detection for better syntax highlighting
- Quick reference patterns are extracted from common usage examples in the docs
## Updating
To refresh this skill with updated documentation:
1. Re-run the scraper with the same configuration
2. The skill will be rebuilt with the latest informationRelated Skills
transformers
This skill should be used when working with pre-trained transformer models for natural language processing, computer vision, audio, or multimodal tasks. Use for text generation, classification, question answering, translation, summarization, image classification, object detection, speech recognition, and fine-tuning models on custom datasets.
torchdrug
Graph-based drug discovery toolkit. Molecular property prediction (ADMET), protein modeling, knowledge graph reasoning, molecular generation, retrosynthesis, GNNs (GIN, GAT, SchNet), 40+ datasets, for PyTorch-based ML on molecules, proteins, and biomedical graphs.
torch-geometric
Graph Neural Networks (PyG). Node/graph classification, link prediction, GCN, GAT, GraphSAGE, heterogeneous graphs, molecular property prediction, for geometric deep learning.
sentence-transformers
Framework for state-of-the-art sentence, text, and image embeddings. Provides 5000+ pre-trained models for semantic similarity, clustering, and retrieval. Supports multilingual, domain-specific, and multimodal models. Use for generating embeddings for RAG, semantic search, or similarity tasks. Best for production embedding generation.
torchforge-rl-training
Provides guidance for PyTorch-native agentic RL using torchforge, Meta's library separating infra from algorithms. Use when you want clean RL abstractions, easy algorithm experimentation, or scalable training with Monarch and TorchTitan.
distributed-llm-pretraining-torchtitan
Provides PyTorch-native distributed LLM pretraining using torchtitan with 4D parallelism (FSDP2, TP, PP, CP). Use when pretraining Llama 3.1, DeepSeek V3, or custom models at scale from 8 to 512+ GPUs with Float8, torch.compile, and distributed checkpointing.
peft-fine-tuning
Parameter-efficient fine-tuning for LLMs using LoRA, QLoRA, and 25+ methods. Use when fine-tuning large models (7B-70B) with limited GPU memory, when you need to train <1% of parameters with minimal accuracy loss, or for multi-adapter serving. HuggingFace's official library integrated with transformers ecosystem.
pytorch-lightning
Deep learning framework (PyTorch Lightning). Organize PyTorch code into LightningModules, configure Trainers for multi-GPU/TPU, implement data pipelines, callbacks, logging (W&B, TensorBoard), distributed training (DDP, FSDP, DeepSpeed), for scalable neural network training.
pytorch-fsdp
Expert guidance for Fully Sharded Data Parallel training with PyTorch FSDP - parameter sharding, mixed precision, CPU offloading, FSDP2
deepspeed
Expert guidance for distributed training with DeepSpeed - ZeRO optimization stages, pipeline parallelism, FP16/BF16/FP8, 1-bit Adam, sparse attention
huggingface-accelerate
Simplest distributed training API. 4 lines to add distributed support to any PyTorch script. Unified API for DeepSpeed/FSDP/Megatron/DDP. Automatic device placement, mixed precision (FP16/BF16/FP8). Interactive config, single launch command. HuggingFace ecosystem standard.
axolotl
Expert guidance for fine-tuning LLMs with Axolotl - YAML configs, 100+ models, LoRA/QLoRA, DPO/KTO/ORPO/GRPO, multimodal support