@@ -321,6 +321,19 @@ This section serves as the guideline for writing new policies and register them
You can create a new file in the `colossalai/shardformer/policies` folder and name the file with the model name. You can implement your policy in this file. You should not import the any model zoo library at the header section of the file because we do not want to import the library when we do not use the policy. Libraries such as `transformers` should be imported only in the function body when needed.
Please follow the following protocols when writing your policy:
- You have to make a clear decision what you want to replace exactly in the original PyTorch module
- Use `ModulePolicyDescription.attribute_replacement` to replace the module attributes
- Use `ModulePolicyDescription.param_replacement` to replace the module parameters
- Use `ModulePolicyDescription.sub_module_replacement` to replace the submodules completely. The target module should implement the `from_native_module` for the .
- Use `ModulePolicyDescription.method_replacement` to replace the module methods. **These replacement methods should be put in the `shardformer/modeling/<model-name>.py`**.
- You can implement the `ParallelModule` for primitive modules in the `shardformer/layer/<model-name>.py` file. Primitive modules refer to modules which are not composed of other modules. For example, the `torch.nn.Linear` module is a primitive module while modules such as `BertEncoder` module in the `transformers` library is a composite module. Primitive modules do not nested inner `nn.Module` members. For composite modules, you should consider using `ModulePolicyDescription` to implement your replacement.
-`ParallelModule` is meant to be used in two ways: `ParallelModule.from_native_module` to convert native PyTorch module to the `ParallelModule` and `ParallelModule(...)` to instantiate the module directly just like a normal PyTorch module. `ParallelModule` should be only implemented for modules whose weights are sharded. If you want to make your module compatible with the `ModulePolicyDescription.sub_module_replacement` and there is no weight sharding in your module, you can just implement the `from_native_module` method without inheriting the `ParallelModule` like `colossalai/shardformer/layer/normalization.py`.
-**Do not import any file in the `colossalai/shardformer/policies` and `colossalai/shardformer/modeling` to avoid unwanted import error**. For example, a file in these folders accidentally imports `transformers` library at the top of the file, then the user will have to install `transformers` library even if they do not use this file. Any file in the `modeling` folder should be only imported by the policy file. A policy implementation should be only imported dynamically via the autopolicy or manually via the `ShardFormer` module.
- Try to keep your import statement on third-party libraries such as `transformers` within the function body instead of the header section of the file. This is because we do not want to import the library when we do not use the policy.
- Step 2. Register your policy to the autopolicy
Next, you need to register your policy in the `colossalai/shardformer/policies/autopolicy.py` file.