nvidia-tooltalk 25.11
Evaluating tool-augmented LLMs in a conversational setting - packaged by NVIDIA
License: MIT
Requires Python: >=3.8

# NVIDIA NeMo Evaluator

The goal of NVIDIA NeMo Evaluator is to advance and refine state-of-the-art methodologies for model evaluation, and deliver them as modular evaluation packages (evaluation containers and pip wheels) that teams can use as standardized building blocks.

# Quick start guide

NVIDIA NeMo Evaluator provide you with evaluation clients, that are specifically built to evaluate model endpoints using our Standard API.

## Launching an evaluation for an LLM

1. Install the package
    ```
    pip install nvidia-tooltalk
    ```

3. (Optional) Set a token to your API endpoint if it's protected
    ```bash
    export MY_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"
    ```
4. List the available evaluations:
    ```bash
    $ nemo-evaluator ls
    Available tasks:
    * tooltalk (in tooltalk)
    ...
    ```
5. Run the evaluation of your choice:
   ```bash
   nemo-evaluator run_eval \
       --eval_type tooltalk \
       --model_id meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct \
       --model_url https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1/chat/completions \
       --model_type chat \
       --api_key_name MY_API_KEY \
       --output_dir /workspace/results
   ```
6. Gather the results
    ```bash
    cat /workspace/results/results.yml
    ```

# Command-Line Tool

Each package comes pre-installed with a set of command-line tools, designed to simplify the execution of evaluation tasks. Below are the available commands and their usage for the `tooltalk`:

## Commands

### 1. **List Evaluation Types**

```bash
nemo-evaluator ls
```

Displays the evaluation types available within the harness.

### 2. **Run an evaluation**

The `nemo-evaluator run_eval` command executes the evaluation process. Below are the flags and their descriptions:

### Required flags
* `--eval_type <string>`
The type of evaluation to perform
* `--model_id <string>`
The name or identifier of the model to evaluate.
* `--model_url <url>`
The API endpoint where the model is accessible.
* `--model_type <string>`
The type of the model to evaluate, for tooltalk it should be "chat"
* `--output_dir <directory>`
The directory to use as the working directory for the evaluation. The results, including the results.yml output file, will be saved here.

### Optional flags
* `--api_key_name <string>`
The name of the environment variable that stores the Bearer token for the API, if authentication is required.
* `--run_config <path>`
Specifies the path to a  YAML file containing the evaluation definition.

### Example

```bash
nemo-evaluator run_eval \
    --eval_type tooltalk \
    --model_id my_model \
    --model_type chat \
    --model_url http://localhost:8000 \
    --output_dir ./evaluation_results
```

If the model API requires authentication, set the API key in an environment variable and reference it using the `--api_key_name` flag:

```bash
export MY_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

nemo-evaluator run_eval \
    --eval_type tooltalk \
    --model_id my_model \
    --model_type chat \
    --model_url http://localhost:8000 \
    --api_key_name MY_API_KEY \
    --output_dir ./evaluation_results
```

# Configuring evaluations via YAML

Evaluations in NVIDIA NeMo Evaluator are configured using YAML files that define the parameters and settings required for the evaluation process. These configuration files follow a standard API which ensures consistency across evaluations.

Example of a YAML config:
```yaml
config:
  type: tooltalk
  params:
    limit_samples: 20
target:
  api_endpoint:
    model_id: meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct
    type: chat
    url: https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1/chat/completions
    api_key: NVIDIA_API_KEY
```

The priority of overrides is as follows:
1. command line arguments
2. user config (as seen above)
3. task defaults (defined per task type)
4. framework defaults 

`--dry_run` option allows you to print the final run configuration and command without executing the evaluation.

### Example:

```bash
nemo-evaluator run_eval \
    --eval_type tooltalk \
    --model_id my_model \
    --model_type chat \
    --model_url http://localhost:8000 \
    --output_dir .evaluation_results \
    --dry_run
```

Output:

```bash
Rendered config:

command: '{% if target.api_endpoint.api_key is not none %}API_KEY=${{target.api_endpoint.api_key}}{%
  endif %} tooltalk --dataset data/easy --database data/databases --model {{target.api_endpoint.model_id}}
  --output_dir {{config.output_dir}} --url {{target.api_endpoint.url}} {% if config.params.limit_samples
  is not none %}--first_n {{config.params.limit_samples}}{% endif %}'
framework_name: tooltalk
pkg_name: tooltalk
config:
  output_dir: .evaluation_results
  params:
    limit_samples: null
    max_new_tokens: null
    max_retries: null
    parallelism: null
    task: tooltalk
    temperature: null
    timeout: null
    top_p: null
    extra: {}
  supported_endpoint_types:
  - chat
  type: tooltalk
target:
  api_endpoint:
    api_key: null
    model_id: my_model
    stream: null
    type: chat
    url: http://localhost:8000


Rendered command:

tooltalk --dataset data/easy --database data/databases --model my_model --output_dir .evaluation_results --url http://localhost:8000 
```

# FAQ

## Deploying a model as an endpoint

NVIDIA NeMo Evaluator utilize a client-server communication architecture to interact with the model. As a prerequisite, the **model must be deployed as an endpoint with a NIM-compatible API**.

Users have the flexibility to deploy their model using their own infrastructure and tooling.

Servers with APIs that conform to the OpenAI/NIM API standard are expected to work seamlessly out of the box.