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.
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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.
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LanguagePython
LicenseMIT
📦 Ships with claude-code-templates
</> SKILL.md
distributed-training-accelerate.SKILL.md
---name: huggingface-accelerate
description: 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.
version: 1.0.0
author: Orchestra Research
license: MIT
tags: [Distributed Training, HuggingFace, Accelerate, DeepSpeed, FSDP, Mixed Precision, PyTorch, DDP, Unified API, Simple]
dependencies: [accelerate, torch, transformers]
---# HuggingFace Accelerate - Unified Distributed Training
## Quick start
Accelerate simplifies distributed training to 4 lines of code.
**Installation**:
```bash
pip install accelerate
```
**Convert PyTorch script** (4 lines):
```python
import torch
+ from accelerate import Accelerator
+ accelerator = Accelerator()
model = torch.nn.Transformer()
optimizer = torch.optim.Adam(model.parameters())
dataloader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset)
- **DeepSpeed**: Direct API control, advanced features
- **Raw DDP**: Maximum control, minimal abstraction
## Common issues
**Issue: Wrong device placement**
Don't manually move to device:
```python
# WRONG
batch = batch.to('cuda')
# CORRECT
# Accelerate handles it automatically after prepare()
```
**Issue: Gradient accumulation not working**
Use context manager:
```python
# CORRECT
with accelerator.accumulate(model):
optimizer.zero_grad()
accelerator.backward(loss)
optimizer.step()
```
**Issue: Checkpointing in distributed**
Use accelerator methods:
```python
# Save only on main process
if accelerator.is_main_process:
accelerator.save_state('checkpoint/')
# Load on all processes
accelerator.load_state('checkpoint/')
```
**Issue: Different results with FSDP**
Ensure same random seed:
```python
from accelerate.utils import set_seed
set_seed(42)
```
## Advanced topics
**Megatron integration**: See [references/megatron-integration.md](references/megatron-integration.md) for tensor parallelism, pipeline parallelism, and sequence parallelism setup.
**Custom plugins**: See [references/custom-plugins.md](references/custom-plugins.md) for creating custom distributed plugins and advanced configuration.
**Performance tuning**: See [references/performance.md](references/performance.md) for profiling, memory optimization, and best practices.
## Hardware requirements
- **CPU**: Works (slow)
- **Single GPU**: Works
- **Multi-GPU**: DDP (default), DeepSpeed, or FSDP
