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huggingface-accelerate

✓ Official★ 11

by firecrawl · part of firecrawl/ai-research-skills

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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🧩 One of 7 skills in the firecrawl/ai-research-skills package — works on its own, and pairs well with its siblings.

This is the playbook your agent receives when the skill activates — you don't need to read it to use the skill, but it's here to audit before installing.

HuggingFace Accelerate - Unified Distributed Training

Common workflows

Workflow 1: From single GPU to multi-GPU

Original script:

# train.py
import torch

model = torch.nn.Linear(10, 2).to('cuda')
optimizer = torch.optim.Adam(model.parameters())
dataloader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset, batch_size=32)

for epoch in range(10):
    for batch in dataloader:
        batch = batch.to('cuda')
        optimizer.zero_grad()
        loss = model(batch).mean()
        loss.backward()
        optimizer.step()

With Accelerate (4 lines added):

# train.py
import torch
from accelerate import Accelerator  # +1

accelerator = Accelerator()  # +2

model = torch.nn.Linear(10, 2)
optimizer = torch.optim.Adam(model.parameters())
dataloader = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(dataset, batch_size=32)

model, optimizer, dataloader = accelerator.prepare(model, optimizer, dataloader)  # +3

for epoch in range(10):
    for batch in dataloader:
        # No .to('cuda') needed - automatic!
        optimizer.zero_grad()
        loss = model(batch).mean()
        accelerator.backward(loss)  # +4
        optimizer.step()

Configure (interactive):

accelerate config

Questions:

  • Which machine? (single/multi GPU/TPU/CPU)
  • How many machines? (1)
  • Mixed precision? (no/fp16/bf16/fp8)
  • DeepSpeed? (no/yes)

Launch (works on any setup):

# Single GPU
accelerate launch train.py

# Multi-GPU (8 GPUs)
accelerate launch --multi_gpu --num_processes 8 train.py

# Multi-node
accelerate launch --multi_gpu --num_processes 16 \
  --num_machines 2 --machine_rank 0 \
  --main_process_ip $MASTER_ADDR \
  train.py

Workflow 2: Mixed precision training

Enable FP16/BF16:

from accelerate import Accelerator

# FP16 (with gradient scaling)
accelerator = Accelerator(mixed_precision='fp16')

# BF16 (no scaling, more stable)
accelerator = Accelerator(mixed_precision='bf16')

# FP8 (H100+)
accelerator = Accelerator(mixed_precision='fp8')

model, optimizer, dataloader = accelerator.prepare(model, optimizer, dataloader)

# Everything else is automatic!
for batch in dataloader:
    with accelerator.autocast():  # Optional, done automatically
        loss = model(batch)
    accelerator.backward(loss)

Workflow 3: DeepSpeed ZeRO integration

Enable DeepSpeed ZeRO-2:

from accelerate import Accelerator

accelerator = Accelerator(
    mixed_precision='bf16',
    deepspeed_plugin={
        "zero_stage": 2,  # ZeRO-2
        "offload_optimizer": False,
        "gradient_accumulation_steps": 4
    }
)

# Same code as before!
model, optimizer, dataloader = accelerator.prepare(model, optimizer, dataloader)

Or via config:

accelerate config
# Select: DeepSpeed → ZeRO-2

deepspeed_config.json:

{
    "fp16": {"enabled": false},
    "bf16": {"enabled": true},
    "zero_optimization": {
        "stage": 2,
        "offload_optimizer": {"device": "cpu"},
        "allgather_bucket_size": 5e8,
        "reduce_bucket_size": 5e8
    }
}

Launch:

accelerate launch --config_file deepspeed_config.json train.py

Workflow 4: FSDP (Fully Sharded Data Parallel)

Enable FSDP:

from accelerate import Accelerator, FullyShardedDataParallelPlugin

fsdp_plugin = FullyShardedDataParallelPlugin(
    sharding_strategy="FULL_SHARD",  # ZeRO-3 equivalent
    auto_wrap_policy="TRANSFORMER_AUTO_WRAP",
    cpu_offload=False
)

accelerator = Accelerator(
    mixed_precision='bf16',
    fsdp_plugin=fsdp_plugin
)

model, optimizer, dataloader = accelerator.prepare(model, optimizer, dataloader)

Or via config:

accelerate config
# Select: FSDP → Full Shard → No CPU Offload

Workflow 5: Gradient accumulation

Accumulate gradients:

from accelerate import Accelerator

accelerator = Accelerator(gradient_accumulation_steps=4)

model, optimizer, dataloader = accelerator.prepare(model, optimizer, dataloader)

for batch in dataloader:
    with accelerator.accumulate(model):  # Handles accumulation
        optimizer.zero_grad()
        loss = model(batch)
        accelerator.backward(loss)
        optimizer.step()

Effective batch size: batch_size * num_gpus * gradient_accumulation_steps

When to use vs alternatives

Use Accelerate when:

  • Want simplest distributed training
  • Need single script for any hardware
  • Use HuggingFace ecosystem
  • Want flexibility (DDP/DeepSpeed/FSDP/Megatron)
  • Need quick prototyping

Key advantages:

  • 4 lines: Minimal code changes
  • Unified API: Same code for DDP, DeepSpeed, FSDP, Megatron
  • Automatic: Device placement, mixed precision, sharding
  • Interactive config: No manual launcher setup
  • Single launch: Works everywhere

Use alternatives instead:

  • PyTorch Lightning: Need callbacks, high-level abstractions
  • Ray Train: Multi-node orchestration, hyperparameter tuning
  • DeepSpeed: Direct API control, advanced features
  • Raw DDP: Maximum control, minimal abstraction

Advanced topics

Megatron integration: See references/megatron-integration.md for tensor parallelism, pipeline parallelism, and sequence parallelism setup.

Custom plugins: See references/custom-plugins.md for creating custom distributed plugins and advanced configuration.

Performance tuning: See references/performance.md for profiling, memory optimization, and best practices.

Resources