run-ferries

---
name: run-ferries
description: Launch, monitor, or seal a Marin canary or daily ferry only when explicitly requested.
---

# Ferries

- `experiments/ferries/canary_ferry.py` (MoE canary, TPU and GPU via `CANARY_ACCELERATOR`)
- `experiments/ferries/daily.py`

Canary is the stable, low-cost health check. Daily exercises a larger envelope
with one or two explicit changes.

Shared baseline:
- data: shared `nemotron_mix` baseline
- default cluster: `us-central1` (zone `us-central1-a`)
- run log: `docs/experiments/daily-ferry-log.md`

Daily defaults to `llama_150m`, sequence length 4096, batch size 512, and about
1e19 FLOPs unless its configuration says otherwise.

## Inputs Before Proposing (Daily Only)
Canary runs normally do not require a proposal cycle or PR. For daily, collect:
1. Last ferry references: issue URL, PR/commit URL, W&B run URL and Iris job ID
2. Human objective for this interval: standard integration pass, or explicit regression investigation
3. Interval boundary: use "since last ferry run", not fixed wall-clock day boundaries

If objective is ambiguous, ask before editing.

## Operating Policy
### General
- Hard launch gate: get explicit requester approval before launching any ferry job. Only exception: the requester explicitly says to launch without asking.
- Follow the `use-iris` skill's job-monitoring workflow until the run reaches a terminal state (`SUCCEEDED`/`FAILED`/`STOPPED`); do not stop early. Full ferry monitoring often takes 4-5 hours.
- Never restart/recreate/mutate cluster without explicit human consent in-thread. Keep cluster mutation guardrails aligned with the Iris monitoring workflow, including the **debug** exception path.
- Use major-event updates (not spam): launch, first eval, major incident, terminal state.
- Seal each completed daily run with a pushed git tag pointing to the exact launch commit.
- Canonical run-closure PR labels: `ferry`, `ferry-daily`, `ferry-log-only`, `ferry-sealed`.
- Canonical seal-tag format (daily): `ferry/daily/YYYYMMDD/<run_slug>`

### Canary
- Keep canary stable; only change it for explicit reliability fixes, and only when diagnosing/fixing a concrete failure mode.
- Canary launches usually do not require a PR if the script/config is unchanged.
- If canary fails, treat as urgent infrastructure/training-health triage.
- Canary is run-only by default (W&B + issue updates); no sealing tag or run-closure PR in the normal path.

### Daily
- Use daily for bounded evolution, usually 1-2 knobs.
- If daily fails, debug with one bounded fix attempt, then escalate.
- Run-closure PR scope is log-only: update `docs/experiments/daily-ferry-log.md`, keep detailed debug/run narrative in the issue.

## Workflows

### Daily lane (proposal + run)

#### 1) Build context since last ferry
Check the latest entries in `docs/experiments/daily-ferry-log.md`.

```bash
LAST_FERRY_SHA=<last_ferry_commit_sha>
LAST_FERRY_DATE=<YYYY-MM-DD>

git log --oneline "${LAST_FERRY_SHA}..HEAD" -- experiments/ lib/ scripts/

gh issue list \
  --label experiment \
  --search "updated:>=${LAST_FERRY_DATE}" \
  --limit 100
```

Treat GitHub-tagged ferry PRs/issues as source of truth. Use "since last ferry run" rather than fixed wall-clock boundaries.

#### 2) Edit `experiments/ferries/daily.py`
- Keep edits bounded (typically 1-2 knobs); propose at least one intentional modification each interval.
- If no obvious change emerges from recent commits/issues/ferry history, pick a low-risk tweak (e.g. data-mix adjustment or hyperparameter change) that may improve loss at the same FLOPs budget.
- Pattern-match from the previous daily ferry; avoid high-churn rewrites.
- Update run naming for this interval (e.g. via `FERRY_DATE` in launch env: `daily-125m-YYYY-MM-DD` style).

#### 3) Record proposal in issue and push launch commit
In the run issue, record:
- last ferry links (issue + commit + W&B/job link),
- exact config delta and rationale,
- risk level (`low`/`medium`/`high`),
- relaunch fallback note,
- why this run is not literally identical to the previous daily run,
- launch checklist (explicit requester approval or explicit waiver + monitoring started).

Then push the launch commit (no proposal PR by default).

#### 4) Launch
Confirm requester approval in-thread unless they already gave explicit "launch without asking" permission.

```bash
uv run iris --cluster=marin job run --no-wait --cpu=1 --memory=2G --extra=cpu \
  -- python -m experiments.ferries.daily
```

After launch, capture and post to the issue:
- Iris job id (printed by `iris job run`, form `/<user>/iris-run-job-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS`)
- cluster
- launch timestamp
- W&B link(s) when available

Optional deterministic daily rerun name:
```bash
uv run iris --cluster=marin job run --no-wait --cpu=1 --memory=2G --extra=cpu \
  -e FERRY_DATE "$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)-daily-ferry" \
  -- python -m experiments.ferries.daily
```

#### 5) Monitor to terminal state
Follow the `use-iris` skill's job-monitoring workflow with `job_id`, `cluster`, `experiment=<ferry script path>`.
- Keep the monitoring loop active until terminal status; ferry runs commonly take 4-5 hours.
- Follow monitoring-loop restart policy for recoverable failures.
- Escalate non-trivial failures to humans.

#### 6) Close the loop
Post in the ferry issue: final status, key metrics/regressions, Iris job ID and W&B link(s), recommendation for next ferry. Optional: post a manual Discord update for major run state changes.

For daily-log metric fields, extract canonical final keys with:

```bash
uv run python scripts/ferries/daily_analysis.py \
  --run <wandb_run_url_or_path> \
  --format markdown
```

Use this terminal issue comment shape:

```markdown
Final status: <SUCCEEDED|FAILED|STOPPED>
Iris job id: <job_id>
W&B link: <url>
Final eval summary: <key metrics>
Experiment link: <experiment JSON/browser link>
Recommendation / victory decision: <next action>
```

#### 7) Seal and open log-only PR
- Create and push a sealing tag for the exact launch commit (the commit containing the `experiments/ferries/daily.py` used for the run).
- Open a PR that updates only `docs/experiments/daily-ferry-log.md`, following
  `.agents/skills/commit/SKILL.md` for commit, PR text, and monitoring.
- Keep all detailed launch/retry/debug narrative in the run issue, not in the PR.
- Apply canonical labels: `ferry`, `ferry-daily`, `ferry-log-only`, `ferry-sealed`.

### Canary lane (steady-state run)
Default mode: launch the existing canary script as-is and monitor. Do not run the daily proposal/PR loop unless intentionally changing canary. Even for unchanged runs, ask the requester before launch unless they explicitly waived that requirement.

Launch (TPU):
```bash
uv run iris --config=lib/iris/config/marin.yaml \
  job run --memory=16G --disk=16G --cpu=1 --extra=tpu \
  -- python -m experiments.ferries.canary_ferry
```

Launch (GPU / CoreWeave):
```bash
uv run iris --cluster=cw-us-east-02a \
  job run --memory=16G --disk=16G --cpu=1 --extra=cpu \
  -e MARIN_PREFIX s3://marin-na/marin \
  -e CANARY_ACCELERATOR gpu \
  -- python -m experiments.ferries.canary_ferry
```

If canary fails: triage and identify root cause, only then open a focused PR if a canary script/config change is necessary, relaunch and monitor to terminal state.

#### Canary profiling triage
- The full `profile_summary.json` is in the workflow logs (default params: `--warmup-steps 5`, `--breakdown-mode exclusive_per_track`, `--hot-op-limit 25`). The step summary has pointers to the raw trace artifact and W&B run.
- The log summary is ephemeral and not published. To re-analyze with different parameters, fetch the raw trace via `--run-target` — see `.agents/skills/profile-training/SKILL.md`.
- If the canary failed early, the profile may only cover warmup steps — check `step_time.all_steps.count` before drawing conclusions from steady-state stats.
- `exclusive_per_track` (the default) can hide device stalls that overlap across tracks. Use `exclusive_global` when investigating stall-heavy profiles.

## Promotion rule

Promote a daily variant only when eval losses and aggregate LM metrics improve
without a reliability regression. Open a follow-up PR for the recipe and this
skill with a before/after metrics table.

## Validation Checklist
- Diff is intentional and bounded for the selected lane.
- If daily was edited, launch commit is pushed and referenced in the run issue.
- Run-closure PR only updates `docs/experiments/daily-ferry-log.md`.
- Ferry issue has updated launch metadata.
- Monitoring loop ran until terminal state.

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