params diff

Show changes in parameters between commits in the DVC repository, or between a commit and the workspace.

Requires that Git is being used to version the project.

Synopsis

usage: dvc params diff [-h] [-q | -v]
                       [--targets [<paths> [<paths> ...]]] [--all]
                       [--deps] [--show-json] [--show-md] [--no-path]

positional arguments:
  a_rev          Old Git commit to compare (defaults to HEAD)
  b_rev          New Git commit to compare (defaults to the
                 current workspace)

Description

Provides a quick way to compare parameter values among experiments in the repository history. The differences shown by this command include the old and new param values, along with the param name.

Parameter dependencies are defined in the params field of dvc.yaml (e.g. with the the -p (--params) option of dvc run).

Without arguments, dvc params diff compares parameters currently present in the workspace (uncommitted changes) with the latest committed versions (required). This includes everything in params.yaml (default parameters file) as well all the params used in dvc.yaml. Values in dvc.lock are used for comparison. Only params that have changes are listed.

a_rev and b_rev are optional Git commit hashes, tags, or branch names to compare. A single specified revision results in comparing it against the workspace.

All params defined in dvc.yaml are used by default, but specific ones can be specified with the --targets option.

Note that targets don't necessarily have to be defined in dvc.yaml. For that reason, it doesn't require an existing DVC project to run in. It can work in any Git repo.

Options

• --targets <paths> - specific params files to compare. It accepts paths to any valid parameters file, regardless of whether dvc.yaml is currently tracking any params in them.

  When specifying arguments for --targets before a_rev/b_rev, you should use -- after this option's arguments (POSIX terminals), e.g.:

  $ dvc params diff --targets m1.json m2.yaml -- HEAD v1

• --all - list all parameters, including those without changes.
• --deps - include only parameters that are stage dependencies.
• --show-json - prints the command's output in easily parsable JSON format, instead of a human-readable table.
• --show-md - prints the command's output in the Markdown table format.
• -h, --help - prints the usage/help message, and exit.
• -q, --quiet - do not write anything to standard output. Exit with 0 if no problems arise, otherwise 1.
• -v, --verbose - displays detailed tracing information.

Examples

Let's create a simple YAML parameters file named params.yaml (default params file name, see dvc params to learn more):

lr: 0.0041

train:
  epochs: 70
  layers: 9

process:
  thresh: 0.98
  bow: 15000

Define a pipeline stage with parameter dependencies:

$ dvc run -n train \
          -d train.py -d users.csv -o model.pkl \
          -p lr,train \
          python train.py

Let's now print parameter values that we are tracking in this project:

$ dvc params diff
Path         Param           Old   New
params.yaml  lr              —     0.0041
params.yaml  process.bow     —     15000
params.yaml  process.thresh  —     0.98
params.yaml  train.epochs    —     70
params.yaml  train.layers    —     9

The command above shows the difference in parameters between the workspace and the last committed version of the params file params.yaml. Since it did not exist before, all Old values are —.

In a project with parameters file history (params present in various Git commits), you will see both Old and New values. However, the parameters won't be shown if there are no changes:

$ dvc params diff
Path         Param         Old     New
params.yaml  lr            0.0041  0.0043
params.yaml  train.layers  9       7
params.yaml  train.epochs  70      110

Specify --all option to see all the parameters including not changed ones:

$ dvc params diff --all
Path         Param           Old     New
params.yaml  lr              0.0041  0.0043
params.yaml  process.bow     15000   15000
params.yaml  process.thresh  0.98    0.98
params.yaml  train.layers    9       7
params.yaml  train.epochs    70      110

To compare parameters with a specific commit, a tag or any revision can be specified, as an additional command line parameter:

$ dvc params diff e12b167
Path         Param         Old     New
params.yaml  lr            0.0038  0.0043
params.yaml  train.epochs  70      110

Note that the train.layers parameter disappeared because its value was not changed between the current version in the workspace and the given one (e12b167).

To see the difference between two specific commits, both need to be specified:

$ dvc params diff e12b167 HEAD^
Path         Param         Old     New
params.yaml  lr            0.0038  0.0041
params.yaml  train.layers  10      9
params.yaml  train.epochs  50      70