Frequently Asked Questions¶
Q: What is the role of the datmo open source tool?
A: The open source project acts as a user-controlled project manager (available as both a CLI and Python SDK) that enables users to create, run, manage, and record all aspects of their experiments.
Q: Do I have to know how to use Docker to use Datmo?
A: Not at all! However, knowledge of Docker will be helpful for understanding how the environments are created and setup.
Environment Questions¶
Q: How can I add my own environments to be used with Datmo?
A: The environment setup command adds in a default environment provided by datmo in the datmo_environment directory. You can add in your own environment by modifying these files, or adding your own files to the datmo_environment directory (ie: Dockerfile, requirements.txt, package.json, etc). You can run a datmo environment create and use the environment ID at the time you run a task or run a workspace. You can also just directly run a task or workspace and Datmo will create a new environment from datmo_environment and will set the most recent environment that was setup as the default for running tasks.
Check out our guide full guide on Bringing Your Own Environment here.
Q: How does Datmo handle all of my different environments?
A: The default environment that will be used for running tasks at any given time is chosen by the Dockerfile that is present in the datmo_environment directory. The other environments locally available for your project, visible with $ datmo environment ls and can be selected by passing the environment ID in as a parameter at the time of a task run or workspace creation.
Q: I’ve made changes to the Dockerfile in my project, but the container environment isn’t changing too. Why is this?
A: When running a task, Datmo always looks first inside the datmo_environment directory. If an environment is not present there, it will then use a Dockerfile from the project’s root directory (if present). However, after the first run, Datmo creates an environment entity and Dockerfile that are replicas of the one used at the time of the initial run. Because of the priority of environment directories, Datmo will utilize the Dockerfile from the datmo_environment for subsequent runs, which means that changes to the original Dockerfile outside of datmo_environment will not appear in the environment Datmo has created/tracked. If you would like to change the environment, you can change it in the datmo_environment folder.
Q: Why does my environment have a different ID on different operating systems?
A: Environment IDs are unique hashes based on the content of the file(s). Due to differences in line separator characters on Windows and Linux/MacOS, this will cause the hashes to be different, despite the visible contents of the environment being the same. Windows utilizes \r\n, while Linux/MacOS use \n.