Machine Learning - Guided Optimization (MLGO) — LLVM 21.1.8 documentation

# Machine Learning - Guided Optimization (MLGO)

## Introduction

MLGO refers to integrating ML techniques (primarily) to replace heuristics within LLVM with machine learned models.

Currently the following heuristics feature such integration:

- Inlining for size

- Register allocation (LLVM greedy eviction heuristic) for performance

This document is an outline of the tooling and APIs facilitating MLGO.

Note

The tools for orchestrating ML training are not part of LLVM, as they are dependency-heavy - both on the ML infrastructure choice, as well as choices of distributed computing. For the training scenario, LLVM only contains facilities enabling it, such as corpus extraction, training data extraction, and evaluation of models during training.

## Corpus Tooling

Within the LLVM monorepo, there is the `mlgo-utils` python packages that lives at `llvm/utils/mlgo-utils`. This package primarily contains tooling for working with corpora, or collections of LLVM bitcode. We use these corpora to train and evaluate ML models. Corpora consist of a description in JSON format at `corpus_description.json` in the root of the corpus, and then a bitcode file and command line flags file for each extracted module. The corpus structure is designed to contain sufficient information to fully compile the bitcode to bit-identical object files.

### Synopsis

Extracts a corpus from some form of a structured compilation database. This tool supports a variety of different scenarios and input types.

### Options

--input

  The path to the input. This should be a path to a supported structured compilation database. Currently only `compile_commands.json` files, linker parameter files, a directory containing object files (for the local ThinLTO case only), or a JSON file containing a bazel aquery result are supported.

--input_type

  The type of input that has been passed to the `--input` flag.

--output_dir

  The output directory to place the corpus in.

--num_workers

  The number of workers to use for extracting bitcode into the corpus. This defaults to the number of hardware threads available on the host system.

--llvm_objcopy_path

  The path to the llvm-objcopy binary to use when extracting bitcode.

--obj_base_dir

  The base directory for object files. Bitcode files that get extracted into the corpus will be placed into the output directory based on where their source object files are placed relative to this path.

--cmd_filter

  Allows filtering of modules by command line. If set, only modules that much the filter will be extracted into the corpus. Regular expressions are supported in some instances.

--thinlto_build

  If the build was performed with ThinLTO, this should be set to either `distributed` or `local` depending upon how the build was performed.

--cmd_section_name

  This flag allows specifying the command line section name. This is needed on non-ELF platforms where the section name might differ.

--bitcode_section_name

  This flag allows specifying the bitcode section name. This is needed on non-ELF platforms where the section name might differ.

### Example: CMake

CMake can output a `compilation_commands.json` compilation database if the `CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS` switch is turned on at compile time. It is also necessary to enable bitcode embedding (done by passing `-Xclang -fembed-bitcode=all` to all C/C++ compilation actions in the non-ThinLTO case). For example, to extract a corpus from clang, you would run the following commands (assuming that the system C/C++ compiler is clang):

    cmake -GNinja \
      -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
      -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON \
      -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS="-Xclang -fembed-bitcode=all" \
      -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-Xclang -fembed-bitcode-all"
      ../llvm
    ninja

After running CMake and building the project, there should be a

  `compilation_commands.json` file within the build directory. You can then run the following command to create a corpus:

    python3 ./extract_ir.py \
      --input=./build/compile_commands.json \
      --input_type=json \
      --output_dir=./corpus

After running the above command, there should be a full corpus of bitcode within the `./corpus` directory.

### Example: Bazel Aquery

This tool also supports extracting bitcode from bazel in multiple ways depending upon the exact configuration. For ThinLTO, a linker parameters file is preferred. For the non-ThinLTO case, the script will accept the output of `bazel aquery` which it will use to find all the object files that are linked into a specific target and then extract bitcode from them. First, you need to generate the aquery output:

    bazel aquery --output=jsonproto //path/to:target > /path/to/aquery.json

Afterwards, assuming that the build is already complete, you can run this script to create a corpus:

    python3 ./extract_ir.py \
      --input=/path/to/aquery.json \
      --input_type=bazel_aqeury \
      --output_dir=./corpus \
      --obj_base_dir=./bazel-bin

This will again leave a corpus that contains all the bitcode files. This mode does not capture all object files in the build however, only the ones that are involved in the link for the binary passed to the `bazel aquery` invocation.

### Synopsis

Creates a corpus from a collection of bitcode files.

### Options

--input_dir

  The input directory to search for bitcode files in.

--output_dir

  The output directory to place the constructed corpus in.

--default_args

  A list of space separated flags that are put into the corpus description. These are used by some tooling when compiling the modules within the corpus.

### Synopsis

Combines two training corpora that share the same parent folder by generating a new `corpus_description.json` that contains all the modules in both corpora.

### Options

--root_dir

  The root directory that contains subfolders consisting of the corpora that should be combined.

## Interacting with ML models

We interact with ML models in 2 primary scenarios: one is to train such a model. The other, inference, is to use a model during compilation, to make optimization decisions.

For a specific optimization problem - i.e. inlining, or regalloc eviction - we first separate correctness - preserving decisions from optimization decisions. For example, not inlining functions marked “no inline” is an example of the former. Same is not evicting an unevictable live range. An example of the latter is deciding to inline a function that will bloat the caller size, just because we have reason to believe that later, the effect will be some constant propagation that will actually reduce the size (or dynamic instruction count).

ML models can be understood as functions. Their inputs are tensors - buffers of scalars. The output (in our case, singular) is a scalar. For example, for inlining, the inputs are properties of the caller, callee, and the callsite being analyzed for inlining. The output is a boolean.

Inputs and outputs are named, have a scalar type (e.g. int32_t) and a shape (e.g. 3x4). These are the elements that we use to bind to a ML model.

In both training and inference, we want to expose to ML (training algorithms or trained model, respectively) the features we want to make optimization decisions on. In that regard, the interface from the compiler side to the ML side is the same: pass features, and get a decision. It’s essentially a function call, where the parameters and result are bound by name and are described by name, scalar type, and shape tuples.

The main types in LLVM are:

- `MLModelRunner` - an abstraction for the decision making mechanism

- `TensorSpec` which describes a tensor.

### TensorSpec

See `llvm/Analysis/TensorSpec.h`. This is a simple data bag, identifying a tensor by name (a string), scalar type, and shape (a vector of ints). The scalar type can only be int (8, 16, 32, or 64), signed or unsigned; float; or double.

### MLModelRunner

See `llvm/Analysis/MLModelRunner.h`. The abstraction has a pure virtual, `evaluateUntyped`, but the contract with implementers is a bit more involved:

#### Implementers

At construction, the implementer is expected to receive a list of `TensorSpec` for input features and the `TensorSpec` of the output (e.g. `std::vector<TensorSpec>`). The list type is not contractual, but it must be a 0-based indexing array-like container. Given a `TensorSpec` at index “I” in the input list, that has a name “N”, shape “D1 x D2x … Dn”, and scalar type “T”, the implementer must:

- set up a contiguous buffer sized `sizeof(T) * D1 * D2 * ... * Dn`. This buffer’s lifetime must be the same as the lifetime of the implementer object.

- call `MLModelRunner::setUpBufferForTensor` passing I, the `TensorSpec`, and the buffer above.

Internally, the expectation is that the implementer uses the name (and maybe shape) of a `TensorSpec` for binding (e.g. lookup in an underlying ML model).

`MLModelRunner::setUpBufferForTensor` stores each buffer at the corresponding index (i.e. its position in the list used at construction). The expectation is that the user will use that position when calling `MLModelRunner::getTensor` to retrieve the underlying buffer (more on that in a bit).

The implementation of `evaluateUntyped` is expected to use the value in the buffers described above, carry out whatever computation (e.g. evaluate a ML model) and then place the outcome in an output buffer which will be returned to the caller. Importantly, `evaluateUntyped` must not reset the input buffers. This is because during training we may want to log the features and decisions, and since the data is already buffered, there’s no reason to force backing it up elsewhere.

#### Users

The users must pass the input `TensorSpec` list at the construction of a specific `MLModelRunner` object. After that, users can be agnostic of the specific implementation, and would typically follow the following workflow:

- call `getTensor` or `getTensorUntyped`, for each input tensor, identified by its index (i.e. the index of the corresponding `TensorSpec` in the list used at construction).

- populate the tensor buffer of each input tensor with values. Users can take advantage of the stability of the tensor buffers like set only once those that don’t change, or cache the buffer address

- call `evaluate` and use its result.

#### Versioning

We support a model “knowing” less inputs than the compiler. This is supported by `MLModelRunner::setUpBufferForTensor`. If a `TensorSpec` requested by the compiler is not supported by the underlying model, the `MLModelRunner` implementer must still call `setUpBufferForTensor` with a `nullptr` value for the buffer. In turn, `MLModelRunner` will allocate an appropriately - sized buffer and track its lifetime. The user can safely populate that buffer. Since the rest of the inputs are still provided, this allows an evolution model where we first add features to the compiler and continue using older models without regressing. Then, the new compiler can be used to train new models. Deprecating features in the compiler involves, then, training first a model without those features.

#### `MLModelRunner` implementations

We currently feature 4 implementations:

- `ModelUnderTrainingRunner`. This requires the compiler be built with TFLite support. It allows loading a TFLite model dynamically and is primarily intended for training scenarios, but it can be used relatively easily in production build environments, as it does not change how the compiler operates (why this remark is necessary will become clear in a few paragraphs)

- `ReleaseModeModelRunner`. This is intended for inference scenarios. This uses the rules defined in `llvm/cmake/modules/TensorFlowCompile.cmake` to convert, at the time the compiler is built, TensorFlow Saved Models into a header (.h) and native object (.o). The latter is a CPU-based implementation of the neural network, together with its weights (essentially, loops performing matrix multiplications)

Note

we are actively working on replacing this with an EmitC implementation requiring no out of tree build-time dependencies.

- `InteractiveModelRunner`. This is intended for training scenarios where the training algorithm drives compilation. This model runner has no special dependencies, and relies on I/O pipes to communicate with a separate process, presumably a python training algorithm. We do not envision using this in a production environment.

- `NoInferenceModelRunner`. This serves as a store for feature values, and its `evaluate` should never be called. It’s used for training scenarios, when we want to capture the behavior of the default (non-ML) heuristic.

Note that training leaves it to the training infrastructure to handle distributed computing. The assumed architecture has python processes communicating remotely between themselves, but managing local communication with clang.

### Logging Facility

When training models, we need to expose the features we will want to use during inference, as well as outcomes, to guide reward-based learning techniques. This can happen in 2 forms:

- when running the compiler on some input, as a capture of the features and actions taken by some policy or a model currently being used. For example, see `DevelopmentModeInlineAdvisor` or `DevelopmentModeEvictAdvisor` in `MLRegallocEvictAdvisor.cpp`. In more detail, in the former case, if `-training-log` is specified, the features and actions (inline/no inline) from each inlining decision are saved to the specified file. Since `MLModelRunner` implementations hold on to feature values (they don’t get cleared by `evaluate`), logging is easily supported by just looping over the model runner’s features and passing the tensor buffers to the logger. Note how we use the `NoInferenceModelRunner` to capture the features observed when using the default policy.

- as a serialization mechanism for the `InteractiveModelRunner`. Here, we need to pass the observed features over IPC (a file descriptor, likely a named pipe).

Both cases require serializing the same kind of data and we support both with `Analysis/Utils/TrainingLogger`.

The goal of the logger design was avoiding any new dependency, and optimizing for the tensor scenario - i.e. exchanging potentially large buffers of fixed size, containing scalars. We explicitly assume the reader of the format has the same endianness as the compiler host, and we further expect the reader and the compiler run on the same host. This is because we expect the training scenarios have a (typically python) process managing the compiler process, and we leave to the training side to handle remoting.

The logger produces the following sequence:

- a header describing the structure of the log. This is a one-line textual JSON dictionary with the following elements:

  - `features`: a list of JSON-serialized `TensorSpec` values. The position in the list matters, as it will be the order in which values will be subsequently recorded. If we are just logging (i.e. not using the `InteractiveModelRunner`), the last feature should be that of the action (e.g. “inline/no inline”, or “index of evicted live range”)

  - (optional) `score`: a `TensorSpec` describing a value we will include to help formulate a reward. This could be a size estimate or a latency estimate.

  - (optional) `advice`: a `TensorSpec` describing the action. This is used for the `InteractiveModelRunner`, in which case it shouldn’t be in the `features` list.

- a sequence of `contexts`. Contexts are independent traces of the optimization problem. For module passes, there is only one context, for function passes, there is a context per function. The start of a context is marked with a one-line JSON dictionary of the form `{"context": <context name, a string>}`

  Each context has a sequence of:

  - `observations`. An observation is:

    - one-line JSON `{"observation": <observation number. 0-indexed>}`

    - a binary dump of the tensor buffers, in the order in which they were specified in the header.

    - a new line character

    - if `score` was specified in the header:

      - a one-line JSON object `{"outcome": <value>}`, where the `value` conforms to the `TensorSpec` in defined for the `score` in the header.

      - the outcome value, as a binary dump

      - a new line character.

The format uses a mix of textual JSON (for headers) and binary dumps (for tensors) because the headers are not expected to dominate the payload - the tensor values are. We wanted to avoid overburdening the log reader - likely python - from additional dependencies; and the one-line JSON makes it rudimentarily possible to inspect a log without additional tooling.

A python utility for reading logs, used for tests, is available at `Analysis/models/log_reader.py`. A utility showcasing the `InteractiveModelRunner`, which uses this reader as well, is at `Analysis/models/interactive_host.py`. The latter is also used in tests.

There is no C++ implementation of a log reader. We do not have a scenario motivating one.

## IR2Vec Embeddings

IR2Vec is a program embedding approach designed specifically for LLVM IR. It is implemented as a function analysis pass in LLVM. The IR2Vec embeddings capture syntactic, semantic, and structural properties of the IR through learned representations. These representations are obtained as a JSON vocabulary that maps the entities of the IR (opcodes, types, operands) to n-dimensional floating point vectors (embeddings).

With IR2Vec, representation at different granularities of IR, such as instructions, functions, and basic blocks, can be obtained. Representations of loops and regions can be derived from these representations, which can be useful in different scenarios. The representations can be useful for various downstream tasks, including ML-guided compiler optimizations.

The core components are:

  - Vocabulary: A mapping from IR entities (opcodes, types, etc.) to their vector representations. This is managed by `IR2VecVocabAnalysis`. The vocabulary (.json file) contains three sections – Opcodes, Types, and Arguments, each containing the representations of the corresponding entities.

    Note

    It is mandatory to have these three sections present in the vocabulary file for it to be valid; order in which they appear does not matter.

  - Embedder: A class (`ir2vec::Embedder`) that uses the vocabulary to compute embeddings for instructions, basic blocks, and functions.

### Using IR2Vec

For generating embeddings, first the vocabulary should be obtained. Then, the embeddings can be computed and accessed via an `ir2vec::Embedder` instance.

1. Get the Vocabulary: In a ModulePass, get the vocabulary analysis result:

       auto &VocabRes = MAM.getResult<IR2VecVocabAnalysis>(M);
       if (!VocabRes.isValid()) {
         // Handle error: vocabulary is not available or invalid
         return;
       }
       const ir2vec::Vocab &Vocabulary = VocabRes.getVocabulary();

   Note that `IR2VecVocabAnalysis` pass is immutable.

2. Create Embedder instance: With the vocabulary, create an embedder for a specific function:

       // Assuming F is an llvm::Function&
       // For example, using IR2VecKind::Symbolic:
       std::unique_ptr<ir2vec::Embedder> Emb =
           ir2vec::Embedder::create(IR2VecKind::Symbolic, F, Vocabulary);

3. Compute and Access Embeddings: Call `getFunctionVector()` to get the embedding for the function.

       const ir2vec::Embedding &FuncVector = Emb->getFunctionVector();

   Currently, `Embedder` can generate embeddings at three levels: Instructions, Basic Blocks, and Functions. Appropriate getters are provided to access the embeddings at these levels.

   Note

   The validity of `Embedder` instance (and the embeddings it generates) is tied to the function it is associated with remains unchanged. If the function is modified, the embeddings may become stale and should be recomputed accordingly.

4. Working with Embeddings: Embeddings are represented as `std::vector<double>`. These vectors as features for machine learning models, compute similarity scores between different code snippets, or perform other analyses as needed.

### Further Details

For more detailed information about the IR2Vec algorithm, its parameters, and advanced usage, please refer to the original paper: IR2Vec: LLVM IR Based Scalable Program Embeddings. The LLVM source code for `IR2Vec` can also be explored to understand the implementation details.

## Building with ML support

Note

For up to date information on custom builds, see the `ml-*` build bots. They are set up using like this.

### Embed pre-trained models (aka “release” mode)

This supports the `ReleaseModeModelRunner` model runners.

You need a tensorflow pip package for the AOT (ahead-of-time) Saved Model compiler and a thin wrapper for the native function generated by it. We currently support TF 2.15. We recommend using a python virtual env (in which case, remember to pass `-DPython3_ROOT_DIR` to `cmake`).

Once you install the pip package, find where it was installed:

    TF_PIP=$(sudo -u buildbot python3 -c "import tensorflow as tf; import os; print(os.path.dirname(tf.__file__))")``

Then build LLVM:

    cmake -DTENSORFLOW_AOT_PATH=$TF_PIP \
      -DLLVM_INLINER_MODEL_PATH=<path to inliner saved model dir> \
      -DLLVM_RAEVICT_MODEL_PATH=<path to regalloc eviction saved model dir> \
      <...other options...>

The example shows the flags for both inlining and regalloc, but either may be omitted.

You can also specify a URL for the path, and it is also possible to pre-compile the header and object and then just point to the precompiled artifacts. See for example `LLVM_OVERRIDE_MODEL_HEADER_INLINERSIZEMODEL`.

Note

We are transitioning away from the AOT compiler shipping with the tensorflow package, and to a EmitC, in-tree solution, so these details will change soon.

### Using TFLite (aka “development” mode)

This supports the `ModelUnderTrainingRunner` model runners.

Build the TFLite package using this script. Then, assuming you ran that script in `/tmp/tflitebuild`, just pass `-C /tmp/tflitebuild/tflite.cmake` to the `cmake` for LLVM.

### Interactive Mode (for training / research)

The `InteractiveModelRunner` is available with no extra dependencies. For the optimizations that are currently MLGO-enabled, it may be used as follows:

- for inlining: `-mllvm -enable-ml-inliner=release -mllvm -inliner-interactive-channel-base=<name>`

- for regalloc eviction: `-mllvm -regalloc-evict-advisor=release -mllvm -regalloc-evict-interactive-channel-base=<name>`

where the `name` is a path fragment. We will expect to find 2 files, `<name>.in` (readable, data incoming from the managing process) and `<name>.out` (writable, the model runner sends data to the managing process)