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Benchmark - Developer Notes

To understand the benchmarking procedure, you should be familiar with Pytest. The benchmark test matrix is executed via Pytest fixtures that iterate through the combinations of test parameters such as model name and size. This basic setup happens in the conftest.py file in the benchmark directory. The benchmark Pytest setup is distinct from the Pytest setup we use for our continuous integration (in the test folder).

You can imagine the benchmark as a set of unit tests, with the only difference being that the test subject is not our codebase, but the behaviour and performance of the various LLMs, prompts, etc. These tests are defined in two parts: the data and the method. Data are collected in a set of YAML files in the benchmark/data directory, while the benchmark methods are implemented in the Pytest functions in the individual Python modules (file names starting with test_). We also have some Python modules for auxiliary functions, such as load_dataset.py.

In the following, we will describe a walkthrough of how to implement your own tests according to our benchmark philosophy.

Test setup

Tests are collected in the typical Pytest manner at the start of the procedure. In conftest.py, we define the model combinations we want to use in the benchmark. We distinguish between closed-source and open-source models, since open-source models offer more flexibility, e.g., by setting their size and quantisation. In contrast, for OpenAI models, all we need is the name.

Quickstart

For getting started with developing your own benchmark, OpenAI models offer the simplest way, only requiring an API key and an internet connection. If you don't want to run open-source models right away, which is tied to setting up an external service for deploying the models, we can remove the XINFERENCE_MODEL_NAMES from the list of models to be benchmarked in conftest.py (by deleting or commenting them out):

BENCHMARKED_MODELS = OPENAI_MODEL_NAMES

In addition, we can reduce the number of OpenAI models to call to one for development; gpt-3.5-turbo-0125 is a well-performing and economical initial choice (in conftest.py).

OPENAI_MODEL_NAMES = [
    "gpt-3.5-turbo-0125",
]

The last thing to look out for when running the benchmark is to reduce the number of iterations for each test to one. We run iterations to account for stochasticity in LLM responses when we run the benchmark for real, but in development, this iteration brings no benefit and just increases computational cost. Set N_ITERATIONS to 1 in conftest.py.

# how often should each benchmark be run?
N_ITERATIONS = 1

This setup should allow you to run and debug a newly developed benchmark dataset or method effectively. For more explanation on how to do this, please read on.

Debugging the benchmark

You can get some insight into how the benchmark works by debugging the existing test cases and stepping through the code line-by-line. For this, it is necessary that you are familiar with the debugging procedure in your programming environment of choice, for instance, VSCode. You can set breakpoints in the initial setup (e.g., in conftest.py and load_dataset.py) as well as the test functions (e.g., test_rag_interpretation.py). Stepping through the code will give you insights into how the benchmark is designed and also how the LLMs respond in detail to each specific task. This is particularly helpful for ensuring that your newly developed benchmark test cases behave as expected and test accurately the functionality you aim to test.

Creating new test cases for existing tests

Our test cases are collected in YAML files that follow a simple formalism for defining each test. A test case consists of

  • a descriptive name

  • a set of input data to simulate a real-world task (e.g., the question of a user and some auxiliary information)

  • a set of expected results to assess the performance of the model's response, akin to assert statements in regular unit tests

Here is a simple example test case:

rag_interpretation:
# test simple relevance judgement
  - case: explicit_relevance_yes
    input:
      prompt: Which molecular pathways are associated with cancer?
      system_messages:
        [
          "You will receive a text fragment to help answer the user's question. Your task is to judge this text fragment for  relevance to the user's question, and return either 'yes' or 'no'; only respond with one word, do not offer explanation  or justification! Here is the fragment: ",
          "The EGFR pathway is deregulated in a number of cancers.",
        ]
    expected:
      answer: "yes"

In this test, we benchmark the model's ability to judge the relevance of text fragments to be used in a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) scenario in an explicit fashion (i.e., we directly ask the model to judge the relevance of the given fragments). Thus, we choose the descriptive name (case) explicit_relevance_yes. The inputs are a simulated user question (prompt) and the system_messages that simulate the prompt engineering and RAG fragments (that in the real application would be retrieved by some suitable mechanism). Finally, we define the expected output, which in this case is only the answer we expect from the LLM.

The way that these test cases are evaluated is defined in the Pytest functions, which are tuned to the specific fields we define in the YAML. We can freely define test definitions and testing implementation by adjusting the YAML alongside the test Python code. The coordination between cases and Pytest functions is done by name of the test category, in this example rag_interpretation in the YAML and test_rag_interpretation.py in the benchmark directory.

New tests can be arbitrarily complex as long as the test function is synchronised with the content of the YAML test dataset's fields (see below).

Combinatorial expansion of tests

Sometimes, it can be efficient to run the same test with slightly different variations of input data. For instance, LLMs are very sensitive to the prompt setup, and thus, we can run the same test with varying approaches to the prompt engineering. To simplify this, we can define input data as dictionaries (with keys being a descriptive name of the sub-test, and values being the content), which will lead to expansion of these test cases into full cases according to the definition. For instance, we can define a RAG interpretation test with prompts at three different levels of detail (simple, more_explicit, and repeat_instruction):

rag_interpretation:
  # test simple irrelevance judgement
  - case: explicit_relevance_no
    input:
      prompt: Which molecular pathways are associated with cancer?
      system_messages:
        simple:
          [
            "You will receive a text fragment to help answer the user's question. Your task is to judge this text fragment for relevance to the user's question, and return either 'yes' or 'no'! Here is the fragment: ",
            "The earth is a globe.",
          ]
        more_explicit:
          [
            "You will receive a text fragment to help answer the user's question. Your task is to judge this text fragment for relevance to the user's question, and return either 'yes' or 'no'; only respond with one word, do not offer explanation or justification! Here is the fragment: ",
            "The earth is a globe.",
          ]
        repeat_instruction:
          [
            "You will receive a text fragment to help answer the user's question. You should only respond with 'yes' or 'no' without additional words. Your task is to judge this text fragment for relevance to the user's question, and return either 'yes' or 'no'; only respond with one word, do not offer explanation or justification! Here is the fragment: ",
            "The earth is a globe.",
          ]
    expected:
      answer: "no"

Upon instantiation of the test matrix, this definition will be expanded into three full tests, each with their respective prompt setup. You can define as many combinations as you like (for instance, you could also define a list of prompts in this example), but be aware that the number of tests will grow exponentially with the number of combinations.

Setting up the test data pipeline

Test data are provided to the test functions via fixtures. The fixtures are defined in the conftest.py file and are used to load the test data from the YAML files. If you add a new test module or a function with a new kind of test data, you need to add the corresponding fixture to the pytest_generate_tests function in conftest.py. This function is responsible for loading the test data and providing appropriately named fixtures to the test functions. For the tests defined above, this equates to:

def pytest_generate_tests(metafunc):
    data_file = BENCHMARK_DATASET["benchmark_data.yaml"]
    if "test_data_rag_interpretation" in metafunc.fixturenames:
        metafunc.parametrize(
            "test_data_rag_interpretation",
            data_file["rag_interpretation"],
        )

We prepend the fixtures with test_data_ for consistency and higher code readability. For more information, see the Pytest Documentation.

Creating new test procedures

If a new kind of test requires a bespoke procedure, such as evaluating a newly introduced functionality or calculating a score in a distinct way, we can introduce new methods to the test modules or even entire new modules. Following the layout of the existing tests, the newly created test functions should refer to fixtures for their data inputs. Such a test function typically has as parameters:

  • the model_name fixture, to be able to record a model-specific benchmark metric;

  • a test_data object that is generated from the benchmark dataset according to the name of the test module (e.g., test_data_rag_interpretation). This is the fixture you defined above in conftest.py;

  • a conversation instance (the connection to the LLM to be tested);

  • the multiple_testing fixture that implements running the test multiple times and averaging the results;

  • any number of additional inputs that may be required for the tests.

For instance, the knowledge graph query generation tests acquire additional tests inputs from the YAML definition (the schema of the BioCypher knowledge graph underlying the test) and additional functionality from BioChatter (an instance of the prompt engine class that generates the knowledge graph query using the aforementioned schema).

Running the benchmark

If everything is set up correctly, you can run the benchmark by executing the following command in the root directory of the repository:

poetry run pytest benchmark

We need to specify the benchmark directory to run the benchmark tests, because we also have regular tests in the test directory. If you want to run only a specific test module, you can specify the file name (or use any other Pytest workflow).

Skipping tests

For efficiency reasons, we by default do not rerun tests that have already been executed for a given model and test case. For this purpose, we store the results in the benchmark/results directory, including, for every test case, an md5 hash of the input data. If you want to rerun a test, you can delete the corresponding line (or entire file) in the results directory.

We re-run the benchmark automatically if a test case has changed (reflected in a different md5 hash) or if there is a new biochatter version (potentially introducing changes in the behaviour of the framework). If a test case has changed, the old result is automatically removed from the result files. You can also force a rerun of all tests by using the --run-all flag:

poetry run pytest benchmark --run-all

Running open-source models

To execute the benchmark on any of the open-source models in the test matrix, you need to deploy an Xorbits Inference server at an arbitrary IP, either via Docker (available on Linux machines with dedicated Nvidia GPU) or natively (e.g., on Apple machines). Please refer to the Xinference documentation for details.

When you have deployed the Xinference server, you can point the benchmark to the server by setting the BENCHMARK_URL parameter in conftest.py:

# Xinference IP and port
BENCHMARK_URL = "http://localhost:9997"